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A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY 






A PRIMER 



OF PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 



EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER 



REVISED EDITION 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 

1903 

All rights reserved 






LIBRARY of CONGRESsI 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 31 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS , o. xXc. No. 

COPY B 



Wi>i« 



5v>// 




V 



Copyright, 1898, 1899, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped January, 1898. Reprinted, October, 1898, 
Revised edition printed September, November, 1899; October, 1900; 
January, 1902 ; February, November, 1903. 



*-,♦ "t "»« »*»« 

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J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

The text of this second edition has been thor- 
oughly revised, and, I hope, considerably improved. 
Sections 23, 37, 85, 87, 92, and 11 1 have been modi- 
fied or rewritten ; several new exercises have been 
added ; a large number of minor changes have been 
introduced in all the chapters ; and, for the benefit 
of those who do not read German, a second Appen- 
dix, dealing with Flechsig's scheme of the cortical 
centres, has been inserted. 

As regards the use of the book, I may quote from 
the Preface to the first edition : — . 

No experiment should be undertaken whose meaning the 
teacher does not thoroughly understand ; none should be per- 
formed in class until he has thoroughly tested and familiarised 
himself with the instruments. So far as time allow^s, pupils 
should be encouraged to put their own apparatus together: to 
cut their own colour-discs, calculate their own pendulum-units, 
etc. They should also be instructed that the object of a psycho- 
logical experiment is not to ' get things right,' to arrive at some 
prescribed result ; but to get things as they are, to arrive at the 
truth. All idea of competition should be eliminated from the 
work. It will probably be found that Chapters VI., IX., and 
XIII. are somewhat more difficult than the rest; more time 

vu 



viii Preface to Second Edition 

should therefore be allotted to their study. Sections "j^^ and io8 
should be omitted if reaction-experiments cannot be carried out, 
and carried out in some detail. Sections 121 and 122, and the 
greater part of § 123, should be omitted from a high-school 
course. For the benefit of teachers who may desire to extend 
the brief account of the brain and nervous system given in § 6 
and Appendix II., I have included brain models in the list of 
apparatus. It would be well to consult the Index (under Physi- 
ology') before determining the form which this extension shall 
assume. Throughout the book I have referred, where reference 
seemed useful, to Professor Huxley's Elementary Lessons in 
Physiology (reprint of 1897: The Macmillan Co.) and to Pro- 
fessor Nichols' The Outlines of Physics (1897: The Macmillan 
Co.). These works are cited as H. and N, respectively. A few 
citations of F, refer the reader to Professor Foster's Text-book 
of Physiology (single vol. ed., 1897: The Macmillan Co.). An- 
swers to the ^ Questions ' appended to the chapters can always 
be worked out, if not from the text, from the '- References ' that 
follow. 

It is a very pleasant duty to acknowledge the 
assistance that I have received from Professor E. C. 
Sanford, of Clark University, and from Dr. I. M. 
Bentley, my colleague in the Sage School of Philoso- 
phy, in the preparation of the revised text. To both 
I am indebted for many points of valid criticism ; to 
both I desire to express my sincere thanks for much 
self-sacrificing labour. I wish also to thank my wife, 
and my former pupil. Dr. E. B. Talbot, for numerous 
suggestions and corrections. 

I have set the late Professor Huxley*s name in the 
forefront of this second edition, partly as an act of 
homage to the Master in Science, — the brilliant in- 
vestigator, the fearless critic, the lucid expositor ; 



Preface to Second Edition ix 

but partly, also, as a personal tribute to one who 
showed himself a good friend and wise counsellor 
at a time when friendship and counsel were sorely 
needed. 

Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 
June, 1899. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 



Psychology: What it Is and What it Does 

PAGE 

§ I. The Meaning of * Psychology ' I 

§ 2. Science .......... I 

§ 3. Mind . 4 

§ 4. Thing and Process 6 

§ 5. Mental Process 9 

§ 6. Mind and Body 12 

§ 7. Psychology and Physiology 17 

§ 8. The Divisions of Mind 19 

§ 9. The Problem of Psychology . . . . . .22 

Additional Questions and Exercises ..... 22 

References for Further Reading ..... 23 



CHAPTER II 



The Method of Psychology 



§ 10 


, Observation 










24 


§11 


Experiment . . . . . 










. 26 


§12 


Psychological Observation 










. 27 


§13 


The Psychological Experiment . 










29 


§ 14 


The Method of Psychology 










• 32 


§15 


General Rules for Introspection 
Questions and Exercises . 
References .... 


1 < 








• 33 

• 35 
. 36 



XI 



Xll 



Contents 



CHAPTER III 

Sensation 

§ i6. Sensations and their Classification 

§17. Sensations from the Eye . 

§ 18. Sensations from the Ear . 

§19. Sensations from the Skin . 

§ 20. Sensations from the Mouth and Nose 

§21. Sensations from Internal Organs 

§ 22. Intensity of Sensations 

§ 23. Weber's Law .... 

Questions and Exercises . 

References .... 

CHAPTER IV 

Affection and Feeling 
§ 24. The Two Kinds of Affection 

§ 25. Feeling 

§ 26. The Bodily Signs of Affection . 

§ 27. Affection and Sensation . . . 

§ 28. Are there More than Two Kinds of Affection? 

Questions and Exercises .... 

References . . . . . 



§29. 
§30. 
§31. 

§32. 
§33. 
§34. 
§35. 
§36. 

§37. 



CHAPTER V 
Attention 
The Problem of Attention 
Attention as a State of Consciousness 
The Three Forms of Attention . 
Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution 
Attention and Affection 
The Bodily Attitude in Attention 
Apperception ..... 
The Working of Attention 
The Physiological Conditions of Attention 
Questions and Exercises . 
References ..... 



PAGE 

38 

42 

45 
46 

47 
49 
50 
51 
56 



57 
59 
62 

64 
68 

71 

72 



74 
76 

78 
81 

84 

85 
88 

90 

91 

93 



Contents 



xui 



CHAPTER VI 



Perception 



§38 

§39 
§40 

§41 

§42 
§43 
§44 
§45 
§46 

§47 

§48 
§49 



§50 
§51 
§52 
§53 
§54 
§55 
§56 
§57 



The Formation of Perceptions and Ideas . 

The Difference between Perception and Idea . 

The Three Classes of Perceptions .... 

The Development of Perception .... 

Perceptions of Quality : Taste, Resistance, Musical Note 

Perceptions of Space : Place or Locality upon the Skin 

Perceptions of Space : Position 

Perceptions of Space : Bodily Posture 

Perceptions of Space : Movement 

Perceptions of Time : Rhythm 

What Perception Means . 

Illusions of Perception 

Questions and Exercises . 

References . . 



CHAPTER VII 

Idea and the Association of Ideas 

The Development of Ideas 

The Four Chief Memory-types . 

The Three Verbal Sub-types 

The Minor Memory-types 

The Association of Ideas . . . 

Simultaneous Association .... 

Successive Association .... 

The Physiological Conditions of Association 

Questions and Exercises .... 

References ...... 



CHAPTER VIII 

Emotion 

§ 58. Feeling, Emotion and Mood 

§ 59. How Emotions are Formed ..... 
§ 60. The Bodily Expression of Emotion : Trunk and Limbs 



PAGE 


. 94 


• 95 


. 98 


. lOI 


. 103 


. 106 


. 107 


. 109 


. no 


. 112 


. 114 


. 115 


. 118 


. 121 



122 

123 
126 
128 
130 
132 

136 

138 
140 



141 

143 
144 



XIV 



Contents 



§ 6i. The Bodily Expression of Emotion: Face 

§ 62. The Classification of the Emotions 

§ 63. Qualitative Emotions 

§ 64. Temporal Emotions . 

§ 65. Mixed Feelings 

§ 66. Temperament . 

Questions and Exercises 

References 



PAGE 

146 

150 
150 
153 

155 
157 
159 
160 



%^1 
§68 

§69 

§70 

§71 

§72 

%n 
§74 
§75 
§76 



CHAPTER IX 

The Simpler Forms of Action 

Movement and Action 

The Conscious Condition of Primitive Action , 
Impulse : The Idea of Own Movement 
Impulse : The Idea of Result .... 
Psychomotor Action, . . . . 
Reflex Movement . . . . 
Instinctive Action . . . . . 
The Physiology and the Psychology of Movement 
The Classification of Impulses and Instincts 
The Simple Reaction ... 

Questions and Exercises 

References ....... 



161 

163 
165 
167 
170 
171 

175 
177 

179 

182 
186 



§77 
§78 

§79 
§80 

§81 
§82 
§83 
§84 



CHAPTER X 

Memory and Imagination 

The Two Kinds of Memory and Imagination 
Recognition and Memory : Passive . 
The Mark of Familiarity . . . . 

The Degrees of Recognition and of Memory 
Recognition and Memory : Active . 
The Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness 
The * Three Stages ' in Remembering 
Direct Apprehension .... 



187 
188 
189 
192 

193 

195 
197 

199 



Contents 



XV 







PAGE 


§85. 


Mental Imagery . . . a • 


. 201 


§86. 


Passive Imagination . . . • 


. 203 


§87. 


Active Imagination ..... 


. 204 




Questions and Exercises . 


. 207 




References ...... 


. 210 



§88 
§89 
§90 
§91 
§92 
§93 
§94 



§95 
§96 

§97 
§98 

§ 99 
} 100 



CHAPTER XI 

Thought and Self-consciousness 
Language . . . . 



Thought 

Judgment and Reasoning 
Aggregate Ideas and Concepts 
Comparison, Relation and Abstraction 
The Concept of Self 
Self-consciousness . . . . 
Questions and Exercises 
References 



CHAPTER XII 

Sentiment 

Sentiment 

The Forms of Sentiment 

The Intellectual Sentiments . 

The Social and the Religious Sentiments 

The Esthetic Sentiments 

The Practical Utihty of ^Esthetics . 

Questions and Exercises . . . . 

References ...... 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Complex Forms of Action 

§ loi. The Development of Action beyond the Impulse 

§ 102. Selective Action ..... » 

§ 103. Volitional Action . . . . 

§ 104. Choice and Resolve .00., 



211 

213 
215 
218 
221 

224 
227 
228 
229 



230 
231 

234 

236 

238 
240 

243 
244 



245 
246 
249 
251 



xvi Contents 

§ 105. The Freedom of the Will .... 
§ 106. Psychomotor Action and Automatic Movement 
§ 107. The Classification of Action .... 
§ 108. The Compound Reaction . . 

Questions and Exercises 

References 



PAGE 

254 
256 

258 
258 
262 
265 



§i 


[09. 


§1 


[10. 


§1 


[II. 


§1 


[12. 


§1 


'13- 


§1 


[I4. 


§1 


lis- 


§1 


[16. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Abnormal Psychology 

Sleep and Dreams 266 

The Origin and Composition of Dreams .... 267 

The Characteristics of the Dream Consciousness . . 268 

Hypnotism ......... 271 

The Conditions of Hypnosis 272 

Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis .... 275 

Insanity and its Conditions 278 

The Chief Forms of Insanity . . . ... .281 

Questions and Exercises 284 

References 285 

CHAPTER XV 

The Province and the Relations of Psychology 

§117. The Scope of Psychology . , . . . . 286 
§118. Child Psychology . . . . . . . .288 

§ 119. Animal Psychology 290 

§ 120. Ethnic Psychology . . . . . . . . 292 

§ 121. The Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic . . 295 

§122. The Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy . .. . 298 

§ 123. Conclusion 300 

Questions and Exercises 303 

References 304 



Appendix I. : Apparatus and Materials .... 305 
Appendix II. : The Cortical Centres (Flechsig's Scheme) . 308 
Index of Names and Subjects 311 



A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY 



-o-o>©4o<)- 



CHAPTER I 

Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

§ I. The Meaning of 'Psychology.' — The word 'psy- Psychology 
chology ' comes from the two Greek words psyche, ofminT^^^ 
*mind,' and logos, 'word.' Psychology therefore 
means, by derivation, 'words' or 'talk about mind.' 
But it is understood among scientific men that when 
the word logos forms the last part of a compound 
English word it shall mean not simply 'talk about' 
a subject, but the science of that subject. Hence 
we sometimes speak of the sciences as the ' ologies.' 
Biology, for instance, which is derived from the 
Greek bios, 'life,' and logos, means the science of life; 
and oology, which comes from oon, *egg,' and logos, 
is the science of birds' eggs. It would not be quite 
true to say, then, that psychology means ' talk about 
mind ' ; it rather means ' science of mind ' or ' mental 
science.' 

§ 2. Science. — But what is the difference between Science is 
* talk about ' a thing and the ' science ' of the thing } ^°^^ ^^^ 



me- 



The sciences can all be put into words ; they are thodicai 

knowledge. 

written down in books, and courses of lectures are 
given upon them. After all, therefore, science is 
talk. Is there any real difference between them } 

B I 



2 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

The answer might be put in this way : all science 
is talk, but not all talk is science. Science is a 
particular kind of writing or talking. Talk may be 
random, scrappy, sketchy ; we may talk about a thing 
when we do not know much about it, so that our talk 
deals only with one side of it or is patched out with 
guesswork ; or we may talk only for a little time 
together, so that we do not at all exhaust the subject. 
Science, on the other hand, is orderly and methodical 
talk, talk that gives a complete and exhaustive ac- 
count of the subject, talk in which no details are left 
out which can help us to explain the things talked 
about. Hence to say that psychology is the science 
of mind is very different from saying that it is simply 
talk about mind. We all talk about mind : we ' make 
up our mind,' or we * have half a mind ' to do some- 
thing : but we are not all psychologists. The science 
of mind must give a complete account and an 
orderly, well-arranged account of its subject, keeping 
the facts steadily in view and never running off into 
mere speculation. 

The science Let US look for a moment at the two sciences mentioned 

of biology. j^g|- j^Q^y . biology and oology. Biology is one of the largest 
and widest, oology one of the smallest of the sciences : but 
in calling each of them a science we mean precisely the 
same thing. Biology is an orderly and methodical account 
of life. It has to ask and answer definite questions : how 
life is distributed over the earth, what animals and plants 
are found in what places, and why ; how life came to be so 
different in its forms as it now is, how species of plants and 
animals arose ; how it is that our own life shows certain 
characteristics and peculiarities which we have inherited 
from our parents, as they did from their parents ; etc. All 



§ 2e Science 3 

these questions are approached carefully and worked upon 
by accurate methods ; and the answers are all brought 
together and compared with each other. If they disagree, 
the questions are tried again : until at last the answers har- 
monise. When this is the case, when we have a complete 
account of life (complete, that is, so far as the facts are 
known) with no contradictions between one part of it and 
another, we have a ' system ' of knowledge about life, or a 
' science of biology.' 

So it is with oology. Every schoolboy can say something The science 
about birds' eggs. But the science of oology deals with them ^ °° ^^' 
in an orderly and methodical way. It tries to find out the 
meaning of all the different colours and markings ; it com- 
pares the shapes and sizes of eggs ; it asks whether the 
colour of the place where the eggs are laid has anything to 
do with their colour, and whether the nature of the nest or 
lock or soil has anything to do with their shape. The oolo- 
gist knows at once, when he sees the eggs of the English 
robin and the American robin, that the birds must be quite 
different : the one is the ^gg of a Sylviine bird, the other 
that of a thrush {Turdus). His knowledge is arranged, 
systematic ; not haphazard and scrappy. It is ^ scientific' 

It should be said, perhaps, that science, as we have defined it, 
is rather the ideal of knowledge than its actual state As a mat- 
ter of fact, none of the ' sciences ' is a complete and perfectly har- 
monious system ; new facts are constantly being discovered, and 
new explanations adopted. But the ideal which is aimed at, and 
which is slowly being realised, is that of the complete system. 
We may, therefore, rightly give the name of science to any body 
of knowledge which has been gained by scientific methods and 
is approximating to the scientific ideal. 



That psychology really is a science, as it professes to be, The science 

of p: 



is something that we must take for granted here. We can- °^ psychol- 



not prove it until we have found out what psychology has to 
say about mind. Then, at the end of our enquiry, we shall 
be able to look back over what has been said, and see that 
psychology, so far as it has gone, makes up an orderly and 



4 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 



What is 
mind? 



The popular 
notion of 
mind. 



systematic body of knowledge. We shall not, indeed, find 
that it is a finished science : there are yet many problems 
for the psychologist to solve. But we shall see that it is a 
science, in the sense in which biology and oology are sciences. 

§ 3. Mind. — The subject that psychology treats 
of is mind. Plainly, then, it is the psychologist who 
can best answer the question what mind is. We, who 
are now beginning to study psychology, cannot be 
expected to know what mind is ; we shall not know 
it till later on, when we have worked over the field 
of the science. Still, it would be unwise to begin to 
read without having any idea of what we are going 
to read about. It will be worth while, therefore, to 
try to find out in a general way what mind is, even 
if we cannot at present give a complete answer to 
the question. And we can find out most easily, per- 
haps, if we ask, first, what people say who are not 
psychologists, and then compare their answer with 
what the psychologist himself says. 

If we ask someone who is not a psychologist, — 
someone, that is, who has not made a scientific study 
of mind, — what mind is, he will probably say this : 
" Mind is something inside of you which thinks and 
imagines and remembers. A stone does not know 
whether it is in one place or another; that is 
because it has no mind. A young oak sapling does 
not feel sorry when we cut down the parent oak : 
but we feel sorry when our parents die, because our 
minds can understand what death means. I have 
never been to Africa ; but I can imagine what an 
African forest looks like, because my mind has 
imagination. Just as your body eats and drinks and 



§ 3. Mind 5 

walks and sleeps, so your mind thinks and feels and 
imagines and remembers. All these things that go 
on inside of you are done by your mind ; they are 
the way in which your mind works." And then, if 
we press him further, and ask again what the mind 
really is that works in these ways, he will say : '* We 
do not know much about that. We can only say 
that mind is not made up of matter, as the body is ; 
it is immaterial. It lives inside the body, but does 
not take up any space : just as a room is full of air, 
but you can walk through it without knowing that it 
is not empty. Very possibly it has the same shape 
as the body, like a sort of ghost. But we do not 
know much about it; we only know its workings." 

Now there is a part of this answer that the psy- 
chologist will be quite ready to accept ; but there is 
a part of it which he will say is wrong. That is not 
surprising ; we should not expect a man who had not 
made a scientific study of a subject to be able to give 
a description of it that would satisfy others who had 
done so. Let us see, then, what is right in the 
answer and what is wrong. 

It is true that thoughts and memories and imagi- Really, mind 
nations and feelings are parts of mind. It is true, thoughts^and 
too, in a sense, that they *go on inside of us. But feelings; 
the psychologist does not think it true that they 
are 'done by' the mind or are the 'workings' of the 
mind, — that the mind is something separate from 
them. He believes that they are the mind ; that 
the mind is just the sum of them all: so that when 
he says ' mind ' he is simply using a sort of short- 
hand phrase for 'all my thoughts and feelings.' 



6 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 



as the chair 
is, not has, 
seat and 
back, etc. 



Things and 
processes. 



It is a little difficult at first to understand this use of the 
word ' mind ' ; but it is important that the use should be 
understood. To make it clearer we will take an illustration. 
Suppose we were asked to describe a chair. We might say : 
" A chair is a piece of furniture that has a seat, and four legs, 
and bars, and a back, and sometimes arms and rockers." 
That seems true enough. But if we look at the description 
closely we find a difficulty. Does the chair ^ have ' these 
parts? Is there any chair there if you take the legs and 
back and seat and arms away ? It is more nearly true to 
say that the chair is all these things than that it has them. 
When we speak of the Hegs of a chair,' we do not mean that 
the chair is complete without its legs ; we ought really to say 
* the legs of the rest of a chair ' or ' the legs of back and seat 
and arms.' Now it is precisely the same with mind. We 
must not say that the mind ^has' thoughts and feelings ; but 
that the mind is thoughts and feelings. Take away the 
thoughts and feelings and you take away the mind. 

" But we are constantly losing thoughts ; we forget things. 
Yet the mind remains." So may the chair-seat lose straws 
or bits of cloth or parts of its hair-padding ; yet the chair 
remains. And the mind is renewed as the chair is ; we 
learn new things, to make up for what we have forgotten. 
Take away a great group of thoughts, and the mind is an 
' insane ' mind, a fragment that is of little use, — like the 
chair without its legs. Take away thoughts and feehngs 
altogether, and you take away the whole mind. 

§ 4. Thing and Process. — Mind, then, is the sum 
of thoughts, feelings, etc. They are the material, the 
stuff, so to speak, of which mind is made ; and they 
are accordingly the matters with which psychology 
deals. 

The objects of which science treats are of two dif- 
ferent kinds. They may be things^ or they may be 
processes. If we were arranging fossil specimens or 



§ 4- Thing and Process 7 

shells or minerals, or if we were experimenting in the 
physical laboratory with the wedge and the inclined 
plane and falling bodies, we should be handling 
things. Things are, for all practical purposes, last- 
ing and unchanging ; they are there, on the table 
before us, and they do not alter as we look at them. 
On the other hand, if we were watching the course 
of a chemical change as it occurred in the test-tube, 
or observing the growth of a tadpole into a frog, we 
should be dealing with processes. Processes are 
always changing ; they are different now from what 
they were a moment ago and from what they will be 
a moment later ; they go on there, in the test-tube or 
the aquarium before us. — Psychology is a science 
that treats exclusively of matters of the second sort, 
/>., of processes. In psychology we observe events, 
occurrences, happenings, goings on, processes : never 
things. There is no part of mind, no thought or 
feeling or memory or imagination, that we can catch 
at rest and watch unchanged ; thought and feeling 
are changing, moving, shifting from instant to instant. 
Mind, then, as the sum of thoughts and feelings and Mind is a 
the rest, is a sum of processes. The objects of the pr^e^sses. 
* science of mind ' are the processes of mind ; the ob- 
jects of * mental science' are mental processes. 

To be able to convince oneself of the fact that the objects 
of psychology are always processes, one must have had some 
amount of training and practice in psychological observation. 
But a rough experiment here will be of some assistance. 

( I ) As you sit reading, shut your eyes and try to think The idea of 
steadily of the chair in which you sit. You will probably ^ c^^^^- 
have, at first, a memory of the printed word ' chair ' which 



8 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

you have just read. This you will see in the ' mind's eye.' 
Perhaps, too, you will hear the word ' chair ' spoken in the 
mind's ear. Then will come a somewhat vague and shadowy 
picture of the chair, as it looks when your eyes are open, 
only that it will very likely seem to be inside your head, — 
as if you turned your eyes inward to see it. All this occurs 
with great rapidity, the changes coming in less time than it 
takes to write them down. Now try to hold the idea steadily. 
Your mind will suddenly ' become a blank ' ; then the idea 
will crop up again, not just as it was at first, but with some 
part of the picture more prominent than the rest, or with 
some new picture of another chair blended in with it ; then 
comes the blank again ; and so on. Now look at the blank 
for a moment : you will find that it was not really nothings no 
mind at all, but that it was made up of the black field before 
your eyes, of the pressure from your chair as you sat, of the 
sensations set up by the movements of the chest and abdo- 
men in breathing, etc. And the various processes in the 
blank shift and change as inevitably as the processes in the 
idea of the chair. Here, then, is a flow, a passage, a going 
on : not anything like a ' thing.' 
The percep- (2) Close the book and look steadily at the table in front 
tion of a ^f y^^^ ^.^^ ^j.y ^q think continuously of that. You will find 

that steadiness now is even more impossible than it was 
when the eyes were shut. There is a tendency to let the 
eyes wander, to let them follow the grain and pattern of the 
wood, or to travel over the various objects lying on the table. 
If you withstand this temptation, your mind becomes a blank 
very soon indeed : the table gets to be quite meaningless to 
you. Presently the blank ends : you remember that you 
' ought ' to have thought of the table, and resolve to do so ; 
the eyes try to wander again ; and so the whole history is 
repeated. Now look at the blank : it is filled up with press- 
ures from your chair, sensations from breathing, sensations 
of strain about the eyes, etc. Here too, therefore, there is 
a flow of processes ; the picture of the table, the feeling of 
'ought,' the resolve, the pressure, the strain, all these are 



§ 5- Mental Process 9 

mental processes ; they are, or they make up, your mind 
during the experiment. Mind ^ goes on' from moment to - 
moment ; it is never still. 

§ 5. Mental Process. — We must now ask how it is 
that a mental process differs from the other processes 
that we have mentioned. If the mental process were 
in all respects the same as the chemical and the 
biological process, we should not be able to put the 
three into three different sciences: chemical decom- 
position, and the growth of the frog, and the course -^ 
of an idea would all have to be treated by some one 
science. What, then, does the word ' mental ' mean 1 

We said just now that mental processes go on Mental 
'inside of us.' The process in the test-tube and the onTnsTdethe 
process in the aquarium are, clearly, going on outside ^^^y* 
of us. Here, then, is one difference between the 
mental and the other processes. Still, it does not 
take us very far. For there are chemical processes 
also going on inside of us : processes of digestion, e.g. 
And biological processes of growth and decay are 
also going on inside of us ; yet we do not speak of 
them as mental. The difference cannot, therefore, 
be merely a difference of inside and outside. 

What we have to do is to distinguish somehow 
between the inside processes which are mental and 
the inside processes which are not mental. We had 
a similar task in § 2 : all science is talk, we found, 
but not all talk is science. So here : all mental pro- 
cesses are processes going on inside the body, but 
not all inside processes are mental. What is the 
difference between them } The characteristics that 
made talk into science were those of method and 



lO Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 



and can be 
known by- 
one person 
only 



completeness. What are the characteristics that 
make a process within the body a mental process ? 
This is a question that has been answered in a 
great many ways. The simplest answer to it, per- 
haps, is this. A mental process is a process which 
can form part of the experience of one person only ; 
the processes dealt with by other sciences can form 
part of everybody's experience. Not only does the 
mental .process go on inside of you ; it is so entirely 
inside of you that you are the only person who can 
ever get at it and observe it. 



(which is not 
true of other 
processes) ; 



Illustrations will help us again. And as we have settled 
the point that psychology deals always with processes, and 
always too with processes within the body, we will take two 
of these processes as our illustrations. 

We said that the process of digestion, going on inside the 
living body, is a chemical process. Under ordinary circum- 
stances, no one, neither yourself nor anyone else, can watch 
your digestive processes. But cases are known in which the 
wall of the stomach has been torn through, say, by a gunshot 
wound ; so that digestion could be followed by the eye, just 
as the reaction in a test-tube can be followed. Now it is 
plain that, in such a case, other people could trace the pro- 
cess as well as you could : better, indeed, for you could 
watch your own digestion only by means of a mirror, whereas 
the onlooker could watch it directly. The mental processes, 
on the other hand, — the pain of the wound, the feelings of 
hunger and of satiety, — form part of your experience only ; 
they can never enter into the experience of the onlooker. 

The same thing holds of the process of growth. The 
growth of a bone or of a tumour within the body could be 
followed from day to day by means of x-ray photographs. 
But this growth would evidently He open to your physician, 
or to anyone else to whom he should show the photographs. 



§ 5- Mental Process ii 

just as well as to yourself. The mental processes, the pains 
and pressures coming from the growth, would be yours and 
yours only. 

We can put this answer in a different way : in a but they 

. ^ . , T embrace the 

sentence which, at first sight, seems to contradict whole world. 
what we have just said, but which really throws light 
on it. We may say that every object dealt with by 
any science whatsoever, — whether it be thing or 
process, whether it be inside of the body or outside, 
— can be transformed into a mental process. For 
everything can be looked at in two ways. It can be 
looked at as it is in the world, where one man can 
see it as well as his neighbour : or it can be looked 
at as it is in someone's personal experience. Looked 
at in the first way it is a physical thing or a chemical 
process or a physiological process or what not ; looked 
at in the second way it is always a mental process. 

Think of sound, for instance. The physicist says that 
sound is a certain kind of movement of the particles of the 
air we breathe. The physiologist says that sound is a com- 
motion in the cells of a certain part of the brain, — a com- 
motion first set up by the action of the air particles on the 
ear, and then carried inwards to the brain along the nerve 
of hearing. The psychologist says that sound is a sensation, 
a mental process. 

The three sounds seem to be very different. The air The three 
movements go on quite independently of us ; there is phys- ^°^^.^^ • 
ical soi-nd when the air moves, whether we are present to physioio'gi- 
^•eav lot. And the commotion in our brain goes on cai, psycho- 

, ^- endently of us : the physiologist who has made 

TiOdei. he ear and performed experiments on animals 

tells us .what happens, and we believe him ; but we do not 
know more than anyone else about the processes in our ear 
and brail:* But the hearing, the sensation of rap or thud or 



12 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

tone, is a particular experience : everyone hears for himself, 
and no one can have any sensation but his own. This last 
sound, therefore, is a mental process. 

Nevertheless, we can make the physical and "the physio- 
logical sounds into mental processes. For after all, if we 
are to have a science of physics, we must have an idea of the 
physical movements ; physics is simply a statement of the 
ideas of people who have worked at physical problems. 
Hence we can say, '' Sound is a certain movement of the 
air-particles" : that is physics. But we can also say, "This 
or this is my idea of the movement of the air-particles " : and 
that is psychology. And similarly with the brain commotion. 

To make the point quite clear, go to a physical text-book 
(iV., 337) and read the definition of sound there given. Then 
ask yourself what idea this definition calls up. Your idea will 
perhaps be made up, in part, of mental pictures of the words of 
the definition {cf. above, p. 7) ; but you will also see, probably, 
in the mind's eye, some picture of the actual movement. Ob- 
serve this picture carefully, and try to describe it in words. 
Compare your own idea with those of two or three of your 
friends. You will find at once how individual it is, how entirely 
it is your own experience and not that of anybody else. Even if 
the words in which two of you describe it should, by some acci- 
dent, be identical, — and this may happen quite easily when you 
are not used to psychological observation, — each will still feel 
certain of the fact that the picture described is his picture and his 
only ; it cannot be transferred from the one to the other, or handed 
round for inspection. You will find, that is, that the physical 
sound has become an idea of physical sound, a mental process." 

In this way anything and everything can be made into a men- 
tal process. Just now we saw that a chair — which, if we look at 
it as a physical object, is sufficiently solid and unchanging — be- 
comes a process, or rather a group of processes, when —: V. .': at 
it psychologically, i.e.^ look at our idea of it. It would ' ■' '• • rth 
the reader's while to test some other cases : try heat, ^ or 
light, or animal, or rock. The result will be pr-^cisely ^^-e le. 

The brain is § 6. Mind and Body. — Mental proce ua i; ir 

the organ of • 1 • > 1 • • 1 

mind. coursc * Within — better, m connectio vvith — ue 



§ 6. Mind and Body 13 

living body. But they are more closely connected 
with some parts of the body than with others. Men- 
tal processes appear only when there is a commotion 
(or, as it is technically called, an excitation) in a cer- 
tain portion of the brain. Hence the brain is some- 
times spoken of as the * organ of mind.' 

The brain (Zf., 290) is a rounded whitish mass of soft 
tissue lying in the cavity of the skull. It is made up of 
nerve fibres (delicate strings of tissue; H., 356) and of 
nerve cells {H,, 359). The cells are found in groups or 
clusters within the brain mass, and also form a layer or rind 
covering the whole. This layer is called the cortex (bark or 
rind) . It is only when certain cells of the cortex are excited 
that we have a mental process ; the fibres serve simply to 
join groups of cells together, and so to convey excitations 
from one part of the brain to another. 

Nerve fibres (ZT., 201, 278, 295) are found not only in The nervous 
the brain itself, however, but also throughout the body, ^y^^^"™- 
Nerves run into the brain from every organ of the body : 
from eyes, nose, skin, heart, muscles, bones, etc. And 
nerves run out from the brain to the muscles. In both 
cases the nerve fibres act merely as telegraph wires, carry- 
ing messages from cells in the bodily organs to cells in the 
brain, and from brain-cells out again to muscle-cells. 

Suppose, e.g.^ that as you are reading a fly settles on your Physiological 
forehead, and you raise your hand to drive it away. On the ^^^ psycho- 
physiological side you have the following processes, (i) The messes 
weight and movement of the fly act as ' stimulus ' to certain skin- 
cells from which nerves run inwards to the brain. ^ Stimulus ' 
is the technical word for the physical object or process that 
can excite a sense-organ and so give rise to a mental process. 
(2^ Thv-^ '^timul'^tion of these skin-cells sends an ^excitation' 
travelling along the nerves. (3) The excitation arrives at a 
gn I, cortical brain-cells, and explodes them. (4) A new 

excitation, di o the explosion, travels along fibres running 
wi J u the Cortex to another group of cells, from which nerves 



14 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 



How we 
know the 
relation of 
brain to 
mind. 



run to the muscles of hand and arm, and (5) explodes these. 
Their explosion (6) sends the necessary excitation to hand 
and arm : hand and arm move. (7) This movement serves 
as ^ stimulus ' to muscle-cells, from which yet other nerves run in- 
wards to the brain. (8) The stimulation of these muscle-cells sends 
an excitation travelling along this second set of in-going nerves. 
(9) The excitation arrives at a group of cortical cells, and explodes 
them ; stage (3) is repeated, but at a different part of the cortex. 
On the psychological side you have : at stage (3) an idea 
of the fly, and at stage (9) sensations which tell you of the 
position and movement of your hand and arm. No mental 
process is present at any of the other stages ; not even at stage 
(5). It is only when the cortical cells which receive the in- 
coming excitations are exploded that a mental process arises. 
(/^., 1060.) 

The fact that the brain is the organ of mind has 
been estabHshed by two Hnes of evidence. In the 
first place, we find all through the animal kingdom 
that size and complexity of brain are matched by 
range and complexity of mental processes. And, 
secondly, we find that disturbance of certain parts 
of the brain indicates a certain form of mental dis- 
turbance, and conversely, that particular forms of 
mental disturbance indicate disturbance of particu- 
lar parts of the brain. 

We cannot go into the details of this evidence here. The 
following facts, however, may be noted. 

(i) The brain of man is, by absolute measurement, an 
organ of great size ; it is heavier than that of any other ani- 
mal, with the exception of a few of the very largest (elephant, 
etc.). It is also relatively, i.e.^ when compared with the 
weight of the whole body, heavier than the brain of any 
other animal, with the exception of a few of ' ' ' ■ * hly 
developed small mammals (some monkeys. i: we 

know that the mental life of man is richer an that my 
other animal. (Donaldson, Growth of Bra 121.) 



§ 6. Mind and Body 15 

(2) The physician finds from experience that pecuhar 
disorders of a patient's ideas, as shown, e.g., by forgetfulness 
of the names of a certain class of things, indicate disorder 
of a special part of the cortex, — say, the pressure of a 
blood-clot upon a particular area of the nervous substance. 
Hence the mental symptoms justify his opening the skull 
at a, certain place. He finds the clot, and removes it ; and 
with its removal the patient's ideas become normal again. 

(^/§iiS.) 

But how do we know anything about the * range and How do we 
complexity of mental processes all through the animal other people 
kingdom ' } How do we know, for that matter, — since ^^^^ mmds? 
we can know only our own mental processes, — that 
anyone except ourselves has a mind at all ? 

Before we attempt to answer this question, let us 
be quite sure as to what the question is. We can 
never know any mental processes but our own ; we 
cannot experience our neighbour's experiences. No 
one can take his friend's grief out of his friend's 
mind, and put it into his own. But we can know 
aboict the minds of others, because we can form ideas 
of their minds. *^ I* know just how he felt when he 
got that letter ! " we say : or ** I knew that he would 
think as I did about it." In other words : it is quite 
possible to know that other people have minds, al- 
though it is impossible to experience what they expe- 
rience, to make their mental processes our mental 
processes. How do we know, then, that other men, 
and the animals, have minds } 

In the first place, there can be no doubt of the Theargu- 

, , T , ,—1 , 1 - ment from 

matter as regards other men. The whole of our society, 
common life — family life, social life, civic life, 
national life — is based upon the assumption that 



1 6 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

we all have minds, and would be impossible if the 
assumption were falsified by the facts. All these 
forms of life, that is, are the productions of more 
than one mind. All of them, e.g.^ presuppose la^i- 
guage. And language is a mental product that 
requires at least two minds for its making. We 
should never have made words to talk to ourselves. 
All of them, again, presuppose laws. Now a single 
mind may form a habit ; but it takes at least two 
minds to make a law. 
The argu- But, secondly, there is other evidence, which leads 

actions^"^ US to assert that all the animals, and not men 
only, possess minds. This is evidence drawn from 
conduct or behaviour. Our conduct indicates the 
state of our mind, the character of our mental pro- 
cesses, at a given moment, just as the direction in 
which the weather-cock points indicates the direction 
of th^ wind. If we find, then, that certain outside 
circumstances set up certain mental processes in us, 
and that under these same circumstances we act in a 
certain way : and if we find that under similar out- 
side circumstances an animal acts in a similar way : 
then we are justified in concluding that the animal 
has similar mental processes. Thus there can be no 
doubt that a dog feels grief and anger, recognises his 
master, dreams in his sleep, etc. ; under fitting cir- 
cumstances he * shows all the signs ' of feeling and 
recognising and dreaming. 

Rudimentary It is not surprising, perhaps, that we should find signs of 

minds. mind in the higher animals ; animals whose nervous system 

is built on precisely the same pattern as our own. But we 

find them quite plainly, too, in the conduct of animals whose 



§ 7- Psychology and Physiology \J 

structure is very different from ours, e.g,^ in that of insects. 
More than that : we find them persisting in the conduct of 
the very lowest animals that there are, the one-celled ani- 
mals whose movements cannot be followed except by help of 
the microscope. These creatures show signs of rudimentary 
'impulsive' action (p. 176, inf.). At the same time, while 
we grant that they have minds, we must guard against sup- 
posing that the mental processes whose signs we see in their 
actions are at all like our own. Mental processes grow more 
and more distinct as the nervous system grows distinct from 
the rest of the body ; and animals that are ' all of a piece ' 
— any part of whose body can act as nerve or muscle or 
stomach or lung — cannot have any but the most confused 
and vague mental processes. 

It has been seriously argued by some psychologists that mind 
appears wherever life appears ; not only in the animal kingdom, 
but in the vegetable as well. This is a question which we can- 
not stop to discuss here. At any rate the plant-mind, if there is 
such a thing, must be so extraordinarily rudimentary and so 
totally different from our own that it is hopeless to try to form 
any idea of it. 

§ 7. Psychology and Physiology. — It has some- Mind is not 
times been said, on the ground of the facts stated brain; 
in the foregoing Section, that psychology is nothing 
but a branch of physiology. Just as the lachrymal 
glands secrete tears, it is urged, or the sweat-glands 
in the skin secrete sweat, or the liver secretes bile, 
just so does the brain secrete mental processes, 
thoughts and feelings. As it is the function or 
office of the stomach to digest food, so it is the 
function of the brain to think and feel. 

This argument is not sound. It is important that 
the psychologist should understand physiology, and 
especially the physiology of the nervous system; 
c 



1 8 Psychology : What it Ts and What it Does 



but body is 
the condition 
of mind. 



The prin- 
ciple of 
parallelism. 



but psychology is not a part of physiology. The 
reason why the psychologist is interested in the 
body is this. 

In every science we try to explain things. Facts 
cannot be methodically arranged and harmonised 
until they are explained. Now to explain a thing 
is simply to state the circumstances tinder which it 
appears. These circumstances are termed the con- 
ditions of the thing's appearance. Apply this to 
psychology. Certain disturbances in the body, be- 
ginning in a bodily organ and ending in the cortex, 
are the circumstances under which mental processes 
appear. Bodily processes, that is, are the conditions 
of mental processes ; and the statement of them fur- 
nishes us with the scientific explanation of the mental 
processes. We can deal with mental processes by 
themselves ; but to make our psychology complete 
we should add to our account of mind an explana- 
tion of it, that is, an account of its bodily conditions. 

That is why the psychologist ought to know physi- 
ology. Wherever a mental process occurs, there 
must be a bodily process to serve as its condition. 
But this is not saying that the brain produces mental 
processes : it is merely saying that the mental runs 
alongside of the bodily, — that, as a matter of fact, 
the bodily is the condition of the mental. To say 
more than this is to leave science for ungrounded 
speculation. 

It is important to understand clearly what scientific ex- 
planation means. Hence it will be well for the reader to 
test the definition just given by instances taken from vari- 
ous sciences : to see, e.g.^ how the physicist explains the 



§ 8. The Divisions of Mind 19 

formation of dew, or the geologist the appearance of dif- 
ferent kinds of rocks. 

It may seem strange at first sight that an occurrence in one 
science (physiology) should be called upon to explain an occur- 
rence in another (psychology). But the process of digestion 
(physiological) is chemically explained ; the shape of the bones 
of the skeleton (anatomical) is physically explained (by the law 
of the lever, etc.) ; and so on. 

§ 8. The Divisions of Mind. — When the zoologist ciassifica- 
sets to work to classify animals, his material, what he 
has before him to work with, is simply the separate 
individual animals found in the world. By putting 
together the creatures that are more or less alike, 
he is able to make an orderly arrangement of his 
material : he groups the separate animals into grades 
and orders and families and genera and species. 

So it is with the psychologist. Mind is a stream 
of processes, going on as long as the body goes on 
living. The psychologist disentangles these pro- 
cesses, and puts together into groups those that are 
more or less alike. In this way he is able to classify 
his material ; he passes by stages from the total mind 
to the single processes of which mind is composed. 

The total mind, the mind that extends over the The three 
whole lifetime, falls (i) into three parts. We call ^nd.° 
them the child mind, the adult mind and the senile 
mind. Each part has well-marked peculiarities which 
distinguish it from the others, although we cannot 
say precisely in what years of life the first two give 
place to their successors. The change is gradual, 
and occurs at different times in different lives. 
(2) Each of these part-minds consists of a series of Conscious- 
consciousnesses. By consciousness we mean *mind 



ness. 



20 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 

now '; the mind of the present moment. It is clear 
that, as you pass through Hfe, you pass through 
a succession of 'now's': now it is time to get up, 
nozv time for breakfast, now time for work, and so 
on. The mind at every 'now,' whether it be in 
childhood or in manhood or in old age, is a con- 
sciousness. You have a getting-up consciousness, a 
breakfast consciousness, etc. Sometimes conscious- 
nesses pass into one another by slow degrees, and 
sometimes very suddenly. 

States of con- But a group of animals may live under favourable or un- 
sciousness. favourable conditions : there may be enough or too little 
rain for them, scarcity of food or abundance of food, etc. 
The conditions of consciousness may vary in the same way ; 
the brain may be well-nourished or ill-nourished, etc. So 
we have different states of consciousness, as they are called. 
Besides the normal, waking consciousness, we have abnormal 
states of consciousness, the chief of which are seen in the 
dreaming and the hypnotic consciousnesses. Within the wak- 
ing consciousness we have a well-marked difference between 
the attentive state, the state in which we are fully absorbed 
or interested in something, and the state of inattention. 

Remember that, just as the same animals may live under 
different conditions, and be fat or lean, healthy or unhealthy, 
so the same consciousnesses may appear in different states. 
That is, the mental processes may be the same in attention that 
they are in inattention ; it is only their state that differs, — their 
clearness and definiteness, and (if we may say so) their power 
to hold their own against other processes. 

So we may see an accident or dream of it. In the first case 
it has a great hold over us ; in the second we forget it soon 
after waking. The state of the accident-processes differs in the 
two consciousnesses. 

The concrete (3) Every consciousness is made up of a number 
process. ^^ concrete processes : ideas, feelings, wishes, resolu- 



§ 8. The Divisions of Mind 21 

tions, etc. Each of these, every idea or resolve or 
feeling that forms part of our conscious experience, 
is a specific ite^n of that experience, — corresponding 
to the separate animal, horse or eagle or what not, of 
the zoologist. 

(4) Once more: just as histological observation The mental 
shows that the animal is not made up of a single 
uniform substance, but that the organism is com- 
posed of a number of different tissues, so does 
psychological observation show that no concrete 
mental process, no idea or feeling that we actually 
experience as part of a consciousness, is a simple 
process, but that all alike are made up of a number 
of really simple processes blended together. These 
simple processes are called mental elements. They 
are very numerous : there are probably some 50,000 
of them : but they may all be grouped into two great 
classes, as sensations and affections. 

Reversing our order, then, we may build up mind as The up- 
follows. We set out with the two classes of elementary bmidmgof 

^ mind. 

processes, sensations (red, cold, bitter) and affections 
(pleasant, unpleasant). These can never be experienced 
separately : a consciousness is never a single elementary 
process, but always a group of concrete processes. While 
the chemist can get H and O as well as H2O, the elements 
as well as the compound, the psychologist can never know 
sensations and affections except by abstraction, by directing 
his attention upon one part of a concrete process and ignor- 
ing the rest of it. 

Above the elements stand the simplest forms of real 
mental experience, the concrete processes (ideas, feelings, 
etc.). These unite, again, to form consciousnesses, which 
appear in various states, according as their bodily conditions 
vary. Finally, a certain series of consciousnesses makes up 



22 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 



Elements. 



Laws of 
connection. 



Bodily con- 
ditions. 



f 



a child or adult or senile mind ; and these three part-minds, 
taken together, make up the whole mind of the individual 
man. 

§ 9. The Problem of Psychology. — We are now in 

a position to say just what the problem is that the 
psychologist is called upon to solve. He must (i) 
give an exact account of the elementary processes^ of 
sensation and affection. He must then (2) state the 
lazvs which govern the connection of the elements 
into concrete processes, and the connection of con- 
crete processes into consciousnesses. He must also 
declare whether these laws hold alike of the child, 
adult and senile mind, and of the animal mind as 
well as of the human, or whether there are different 
laws for each stage of mental development. Lastly, 
(3) he must give the bodily conditions under which 
the elementary processes appear, and those under 
which a change occurs in the state of consciousness. 

This threefold problem is a great deal too wide to be 
solved in a single book. All that we can do here is to 
sketch briefly the answers to the most important questions 
involved. But it is well to realise, at the beginning of one's 
study of mind, how large and how varied a field psychology 
covers. 

Additional Questions and Exercises 

(i) In thinking of the chair as directed in § 4 do you see it 
in your head, or do you see yourself sitting in it, or is it some- 
where in space, away from you? If you see it in space, where 
precisely does it seem to be ? Can you make it move from place 
to place at will ? Can you see it on your eyelids ? Can you see 
it as if it were in the room behind you ? 

(2) When you are thinking of the table, and have iht feeling 
of 'ought '' and the resolve to hold the table steadily, what are 
the processes that actually make up your consciousness? Can 



Questions and Exercises 23 

you split up the feeling and the resolve into simpler processes ? 
Think of various things that you ought and mean to do, and see if 
you can discover what the feelings and resolves are made up of. 

(3) What difference would it make in the list of processes, 
psychological and physiological, in § 6, if instead of simply wav- 
ing my hand to drive the fly away I actually touched my fore- 
head ? Draw a diagram (pattern in James, Textbook^ p. 117). 

(4) What other products of our common life are there, besides 
language and law, which compel us to believe that our fellow- 
men have minds ? 

l' (5) How would a dog show grief, anger, recognition, dream- 
ing ? How could you tell that a one-celled animal was moving 
^ impulsively ' ? 

(6) Give from memory some of the differences between your 
mind as a young child and your mind now. How do old people's 
minds differ from your own ? 

(7) Write out a list of the chief consciousnesses that have 
made up your experience to-day. How short a time do you 
think a consciousness could last? And how long a time? Give 
an instance of a sudden change from one consciousness to 
another of quite a different kind. 

(8) What is the physiological function of the brain? If it 
is the function of the stomach to digest, and that of the liver to 
secrete bile, the brain must have a similar office, as a bodily 
organ. That office is not to secrete thought and feeling : what 
is it? (//., 18; F., 7.) 

(9) What is your earliest notion of your own mind that you 
can recall ? 

(10) State definitely what assistance a physiologist would 
derive from a knowledge of psychology. 

(11) What is meant by the ^explosion' of a nerve-cell? 
(//"., 287 ; F.^ 145 ; H. H. Donaldson, The Growth of the Brain^ 
1895, p. 277.) And what by ^cerebral localisation'? (/^., pp. 
740 fif . ; P. Flechsig, Gehirn u, Seele^ 1896; Localisation d, 
geistigen Vorgdnge^ 1896.) 

References for Further Reading 

James, Textbook of Psychology^ pp. 1-8, 78-120, 128-133, 151-160. 
Sully, The Human Mind, vol. I., chs. i., iii. ; vol. II., appendix N. 
Titchener, Outline of Psychology, §§ 1-6, 100. 
Wundt, Lectures on Hiunan and Aniinal Psychology, Lecture I., 

§§ 1,2; Lecture XXX., §§ 2, 3, 4. 
Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, §§ i, 2, 4, 22. 



V 



CHAPTER II 

The Method of Psychology 

§ 10. Observation. — The first thing which science 
demands of you is that you learn to observe. Obser- 
vation, the seeing of things or processes as they 
really are, is by no means easy. " There is not one 
person in a hundred," says Huxley, *Svho can describe 
the commonest occurrence with even an approach to 
accuracy." 
The diffi- There are four reasons why observation should be 

observing difficult, (i) In the first place, we are all naturally 
careless ; we like to take things easily, and dislike 
making a sustained effort. Observation requires 
great care. (2) Secondly, we are all biassed or 
prejudiced. Thus we may expect to see a certain 
thing, or want to see a certain thing. Under these 
circumstances, there is every chance of our seeing 
that thing when it is not there to see. (3) Thirdly, 
it is not till we have had a good deal of practice in 
observation that we know what to look for ; in our 
first attempts we are 'all at sea,' — just as likely to 
make much of the unimportant as to single out the 
important things. (4) And lastly, when the object 
of observation is a process, something that continually 
changes, we may be confused and baffled by the 
change. If the process goes on slowly, we may grow 
tired of observing, and so overlook some of its stages ; 
if it goes on quickly, we may not have time to notice 
them all. 

24 



§ lo. Observation 25 

(i) and (2) are well illustrated by the game of 'hunt- 
the-thimble.' The thimble is least likely to be found if you 
put it out in full view upon a central table. This is because 
the seeker is too careless to note so small an addition to the 
famihar things already on the table, and because he is 
prejudiced by the idea that you must have hidden the 
thimble in some very ' unlikely ' place. 

(3) is illustrated by the difficulty that we all have of 
making our companion on a country walk see a bird that 
has just settled on a tree a Httle way off. When he has found 
it, when he knows what he should have looked for, he is 
surprised that he did not see it at once. 

(4) may be psychologically illustrated. Go into a dark- 
ened room, and look straight in front of you. You will see 
the blackness dotted and sprinkled with all manner of 
coloured points and flashes and patterns, which pass into 
one another like ' dissolving views.' Try to follow the 
changes, describing them aloud to yourself. 

These difficulties may all of them be overcome, and how to 
however, with patience and practice. The reader ^^^^ 
who has worked in a physical or chemical laboratory- 
will remember how * hopelessly accurate ' physical 
measurements and chemical analyses seemed at first, 
but how in time it became as natural for him to be 
careful as it had been to be careless. If a man **keep 
faithfully busy each hour of the working day," says 
Professor James, " he may safely leave the final result 
to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on 
waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of 
the competent ones of his generation, in whatever 
pursuit he may have singled out." And the sci- 
entific man would not know so well what his diffi- 
culties were, if he had not been able to surmount 
them. 



overcome 



26 The Method of Psychology 

What an § 1 1- Experiment. — Wherever it is possible, science 

mem "is employs experiment in its observations. An experi- 
ment is simply an observation made under standard 
conditions. When an event happens in nature, it 
happens under all sorts of conditions, some of which 
are its conditions (the circumstances under which it 
occurs), while others are of no importance for it, but 
are present accidentally, as it were, — merely because 
nature is so enormously complicated. In order to 
sift out the true conditions from their chance accom- 
paniments we perform experiments. We arrange 
the conditions under which the event shall occur, in 
such a way (i) that other investigators can 7'epeat our 
observation, and (2) that they and we can vary one 
condition after another, and see how the event is 
affected by the change. Hence an experiment is 
both an observation that can be repeated, and an 
observation that can be explained. These two prop- 
erties of the experiment are indicated by the words 
* standard conditions.' 

In many cases an experiment enables us to reproduce 
and explain an event that in nature requires long ages for 
its accomplishment. Thus the geologist finds that certain 
rocks have been smoothed or hollowed, to all appearances, 
by the action of sand driven against their surface by the 
wind. Taking a piece of rock to his laboratory, and driving 
sand against it at high pressure by the ' sand blast,' he is 
able to satisfy himself that the wind and sand could produce 
the observed effects. 

So the formation of shores and of river beds, which in 
nature is an exceedingly slow process, can be shown in a 
few minutes experimentally, by pouring a stream of water 
upon a mixture of different kinds of earth. 



§ 12. Psychological Observation 27 

§ 12. Psychological Observation. — Psychological The diffi- 
observation has all the difficulties of scientific obser- psvchoiocri- 
vation in 2:eneral, and some added difficulties of its ^^^ observa- 
own. Our mental processes are so familiar to us, 
we think we know ourselves so well, that we are 
liable to be very careless and very prejudiced in 
our account of our own mind. Again, even if we 
take the psychologist's warning to heart, and resolve 
to look at ourselves carefully and impartially, we are 
at a loss to know what to look for : what we have 
always taken most for granted may be altogether 
imaginary, and quite unlike the reality. And lastly, • 
of all the processes that we could set out to exam- 
ine, mental processes are the least tangible and the 
most elusive. 

Moreover, psychological observation is observation or intro- 
by each man of his own experience, of mental pro- ^p^^^°^ 
cesses which lie open to him but to no one else. 
Hence while all other scientific observation may be 
called inspection^ the looking at things or processes, 
psychological observation is introspection, the looking 
inward into oneself. Now ' observing ' is a mental 
process. When we are observing a thing or process 
in the outside world, we do not thereby interfere 
with it : the fossils are there, and the tadpole goes 
on growing, whether or not we have turned them 
into mental processes, formed ideas of them. - But 
when we are observing a mental process the case is 
very different. We are now interfering with what 
we are watching : our consciousness a moment ago, 
before we began to introspect, was made up of cer- 
tain processes ; now we have introduced among these 



28 The Method of Psychology 

a new process, — the mental process of observation. 
Surely, that is a poor method of observation which 
changes the very thing that we want to observe ! 
and their To get ovcr this difficulty, you must wait to intro- 

spect until the processes that you wish to examine 
have passed by. Let them run their course undis- 
turbed : then call them back by memory, and look 
at them. They are now dead, and cannot be changed 
by your observation. Only take care that you do not 
wait too long before recalling them If 2i post 7nortem 
examination is to be of any use, it must be made soon 
after death. And decay sets in among mental pro- 
cesses as well as in dead bodies ; we may ' forget * 
them entirely, or they may get overrun by all sorts 
of other and more recent processes, so that we can- 
• not live them over again just as they were. 

The chief reason for the occurrence of the ^ blanks ' in 
the introspection of § 4 was that you were trying to observe 
your ideas while they were going on. How fatal this mis- 
take is you will realise at once if you seek to introspect a 
feeling during its course. Try to observe your enjoyment, 
while you are enjoying yourself : the observation drives the 
enjoyment out of mind altogether. You do not drive an 
idea out of mind in the same way, by the wrong use of 
introspection ; but you alter it and interfere with it very 
considerably. 

Here, as before, the difficulties, formidable as they 
seem, can be overcome by hard work. Since you 
carry the material for introspection about with you, 
you can practise it at all times and in all places ; and 
practice makes perfect. For some little while you will 
be baffled ; but presently, very likely when you are 
least expecting it, you will come face to face with a 



§ 13- The Psychological Experiment 29 

concrete process and find yourself observing it, — and 
then you are on your way to be a psychologist. 

Many of our most interesting mental processes are very 
hard to catch, and, unless one seizes upon them promptly, 
will be gone before there is an opportunity to introspect 
them. One may, however, cultivate an attitude of alertness 
towards one's psychological experiences, may learn (as it 
were) to meet them half-way, — or rather to pounce upon 
them before they have lapsed from memory as well as from 
the present consciousness. 

We are often warned by moralists against ^ giving way to a Morbid 
morbid introspection,' But ^morbid introspection' is very differ- introspec- 
ent from the introspection of the psychologist. What the moral- 
ist condemns is a continual occupation with the affairs of self, to 
the neglect of the wider interests of family or society or nation, 
— an exaggerated notion of the importance of one's own acts 
and motives, and the consequent failure to see oneself in a right 
social perspective. In other words, he is looking at the practical 
side of life ; whereas the psychologist's interest is scientific. 
The psychologist introspects his own mind not because it is 
worth more than others, but because it is the only mind accessible 
to him. 

§ 13. The Psychological Experiment. — Experiments inpsychoi- 
are more needed in psychology, perhaps, than in any ments^are" 
other science. For the facts of nature are, at any ^^^^^^ 
rate, open to all observers alike ; whereas the facts 
of mind are never open to more than one person. 
If then the results of introspection are to have any 
scientific value, — if we are to have any assurance 
that they hold equally for all minds, — they must 
evidently be obtained under standard conditions : so 
that every enquirer may repeat for himself the obser- 
vations recorded by other enquirers as true in their 
particular cases. 



30 



The Method of Psychology 



and can be 
performed. 



A psycho- 
logical ex- 
periment. 



The immediate conditions of mental processes are 
brain processes. Hence it is these that we should 
record and vary, if we were able to perform a 
direct psychological experiment. Plainly, however, 
we cannot get at our brain processes ; the brain is 
locked up in the skull, and can be affected only in- 
directly, by Vv^ay of the external organs of the body 
which are connected with it by nerve fibres. 

Still, experiment is possible. The processes that 
go on in a particular part of the brain are condi- 
tioned (i) by. the excitations coming in along the 
nerves that lead to it, and (2) by the state of all the 
rest of the brain. The excitations are dependent, 
in their turn, upon • the stimulation of the external 
bodily organ from which the nerves start ; so that by 
varying the stifnuliis in a definite way, we can vary 
the brain processes in a definite way, — just as well 
as if we had access to them directly. On the other 
hand, we try to keep the rest of the brain in the 
same state throughout an experiment by arranging 
(i) that disturbing stimuli shall be shut off, and 
(2) that the observer's ' frame of mind ' shall remain 
the same. 

Suppose, e.g.^ that we wished to find out by experiment 
how our idea of a printed word is formed, — whether we 
read it letter by letter, or take in its form as a whole, or take 
in the form and certain letters. The immediate conditions of 
the idea are cortical processes in the back of the head, where 
the excitations carried in by the optic nerve are received. 
These are out of our power. But they depend (i) upon the 
excitations coming in through the eye, and (2) upon the 
state of the rest of the cortex. (We saw in § 6 that the cell- 
clusters which receive, and the cell-clusters which send out 



§ 13. The Psychological Experiment 31 

excitations are connected by nerve fibres ; the same thing 
is true of all the different receiving clusters, those connected 
with the eye, ear, mouth, skin, etc.) Now we can control the 
excitations, because we can present to the eye any kind of 
word- stimulus that we care to use, altering or omitting par- 
ticular letters of the word, etc. ; and we can record the nature 
of the stimulus in every case, so that other psychologists are 
able to repeat our experiments. We try, further, to keep the 
rest of the cortex steady (i) by shutting out other stimuli. 
Thus we work in a darkened room, and flash the word on 
a screen, all else remaining dark. And (2) we do all we 
can to preserve an equable frame of mind ; knowing that if 
the thoughts are allowed to wander, new processes will be 
arising in various parts of the cortex, and the equilibrium of 
the brain will have been upset. 

It is clear that in most cases two persons are needed for the 
performance of a psychological experiment. The ' subject ' or 
' observer ' introspects ; the ' experimenter ' arranges the condi- 
tions. Thus the subject would introspect, in the instance given, 
to see what contribution the various stimuli made to the forma- 
tion of the idea under investigation ; the experimenter would 
arrange the instruments for flashing the stimuli, would do his 
best to keep the subject in an even frame of mind, and would 
record the character of the stimuli given and any indications that 
the observer might show (by incidental remarks, by restlessness, 
etc.) of steadiness or unsteadiness of thought. 

In this way, introspection can take place under Community 
standard conditions ; the psychologist can experi- [hJ^°assured. 
ment. The conditions to be repeated and regulated 
are those of (i) stimulus and (2) frame of mind. If 
they are properly described, any psychologist can 
satisfy himself of the correctness or incorrectness 
of a result obtained by any other psychologist : he 
can make precisely the same observation under pre- 
cisely the same circumstances. If a number of psy- 
chologists, after many experiments, reach the same 



32 



The Method of Psychology 



Experimental 
introspection 
the psycho- 
logical 
method. 



The first 
psychologi- 
cal labora- 
tory. 



result, that result is a psychological fact of scientific 
value. 

§ 14. The Method of Psychology. — It follows, from 
the two foregoing Sections, that the method of psy- 
chology is the method of experimental introspection. 
Only by looking inward can we gain knowledge of 
mental processes ; only by looking inward under stand- 
ard conditions can we make our knowledge scientific. 

Even when we are examining a mind as if it were 
an object in the outside world, — when we are trying 
to understand the mental processes of a child or a 
dog or an insect as shown by conduct and action, the 
outward signs of mental processes, — we must always 
fall back upon experimental introspection. For our 
own mind is our only means of interpreting the mind 
of another organism ; we cannot imagine processes 
in another mind that we do not find in our own. 
Experimental introspection is thus our one reliable 
method of knowing ourselves ; it is the sole gateway 
to psychology. 

Psychology is a very old science : we have a complete 
treatise from the hand of Aristotle (b.c. 384-322). But the 
experimental method has only recently been adopted by 
psychologists ; the first psychological laboratory was opened 
by Professor Wundt at Leipsic in 1878-9. It now seems 
certain that there is no mental process that cannot be 
observed experimentally. There are many that have not 
yet been satisfactorily investigated ; but the reason is simply 
that the use of the experimental method requires training 
and practice, and that twenty years is too short a time for 
the re-making of a whole science. 

Let us take an instance to show that experiment is possible 
under very unfavourable conditions. We said in § 6 that it is 



§ 15- General Rules for Introspection 33 

only when the cortical cells which receive incoming excitations 
are exploded that a mental process arises. But it is plain that, 
when once these cells have been exploded by an excitation 
coming from the outside^ they can be exploded later from the 
inside. Thus we should never know what green was unless a 
certain stimulus had been presented to the eye and the green- 
cells of the cortex, if we may use that phrase, had been exploded 
by the excitation sent inwards along the optic nerve. But when 
once we have ^seen' green, we know what green is: we can 
remember green, or imagine it, even if we are looking at black or 
red. The green-cells are, in this case, exploded from within (by 
the action of neighbouring or connected cells, by change of blood 
supply, etc.) ; there is no external stimulus. Here, then, the 
circumstances are as unfavourable for experiment as they can 
well be ; we seem to have no control over the excitation, the 
bodily condition of the remembered or imagined green. 

Nevertheless, we can experiment. For we can (i) keep dis- 
tracting stimuli away, and (2) introspect the memory-green or 
fancy-green in an even frame of mind. These are standard 
conditions ; they can be accurately recorded by the psychologist 
who introspects ; and they can be repeated by other psycholo- 
gists after him. 

§ 15. General Rules for Introspection. — The rules Special and 

r • i . • r . 1 • 1 1 1 general rules 

for introspection are or two kinds: general and ofintrospec- 
special. The latter refer to the regulation of stimu- ^i°"- 
lus, and differ in different investigations ; the former 
refer to the frame of mind, and must be observed in 
all investigations alike. 

Suppose, e.g,^ that you were trying to find out how small Special rules 

a difference you could distinguish in the smell of beeswax ; of mtrospec- 

•' ^ ^ tion. 

that is, how much greater the surface of the stimulus must 

be made if the sensation of smell is to become noticeably 

stronger. It would be a special rule that you should work 

only on dry days ; for beeswax smells much stronger in wet 

than in fine weather. Or if you were trying to discover 

how well you could call up the smell of beeswax in your 

mind, without having the wax under your nose, it would be 



34 



The Method of Psychology 



a special rule that you should perform the experiment in a 
perfectly odourless room, so that the excitation set up from 
inside the brain should not be interfered with by foreign 
stimulations set up in the smell-cells, of the nose. Again, if 
you were trying to distinguish all possible tints of blue, it 
would be a special rule that you should work always by the 
same illumination : always by dull daylight, or always by 
the same electric light, etc. For a blue seen in sunlight is 
different from the same blue seen in dull daylight. 



General 
rules : 



The general rules of experimental introspection are 
as follows : 

impartiality, (i) Be impartial. Do not form a preconceived idea 
of what you are going to find by the experiment ; do 
not hope or expect to find this or that process. Take 
consciousness as it is. 

attention, (2) Be attentive. Do not speculate as to what you 

are doing or why you are doing it, as to its value 01 
uselessness, during the experiment. Take the experi- 
ment seriously. 

comfort, (3) Be comfortable. Do not begin to introspect 

till all the conditions are satisfactory ; do not work if 
you feel nervous or irritated, if the chair is too high 
or the table too low for you, if you have a cold or a 
headache. Take the experiment pleasantly. 

freshness. (4) Be perfectly fresh. Stop working the moment 

that you feel tired or jaded. Take the experiment 
vigorously. 

The reasons for these rules should be obvious. Attention 
to the stimulus makes it clearer, and holds it in mind longer. 
Moreover, if the attention wanders, other processes than 
that under investigation come into consciousness, and inter- 
fere with the experiment. The same thing happens if you 
are uncomfortable. Discomfort draws your attention from 



I 



Questions and Exercises 35 

the object of the experiment to the source of the uncomfort- 
able feehngs. And fatigue means that your brain is not in 
good working order. 

Summing up, then, we may say that the rule of psychological 
work is this. Live wipartially, attentively , co^nfortably, freshly, 
the part of your 7nental life that you wish to tender stand. As 
soon as it is past, call it back and describe it. 

Questions and Exercises 

[The exercises will be best performed in class, or by several 
students who are working together, as comparative results are 
desirable.] 

(i) Numerous methods may be devised to test accuracy of 
observation. You may, e.g., draw a plan, to scale, of some room 
familiar to you ; putting doors, windows and furniture in their 
right positions. Or draw from memory the distortion that an 
oblong table suffers when you look at it from one corner. Or 
draw pictures from memory of an oak-leaf and an elm -leaf. Or 
have some simple geometrical construction, some arrangement of 
dots and lines and curves, drawn on a blackboard : look at it for 
5 sec, and then try to reproduce it on paper. 

If two or three persons have recently witnessed an accident or 
a theatrical performance, or have been present at a social gather- 
ing, let them write out a detailed account of what they experi- 
enced, and compare notes. Or let a number of people walk a 
certain distance down a country road, or a street, and afterwards 
write out their experiences, and compare notes. 

(2) Four newspapers describe the same gown as {a) gold 
brocade, {b) white silk, (c) light mauve, and {d) sea-green, with 
cream or ivory sheen on it. How could this difference of opinion 
have arisen? 

(3) Newton is said to have discovered the law of gravitation 
by observing the fall of an apple from the bough. Was this a 
simple observation, or could it be said to have anything of the 
experiment about it ? 

(4) How does the psychological experiment resemble, and 
how does it differ from, the physical or chemical experiment ? 

(5) Try to introspect an idea while it is going on. Intro- 
spection is a mental process, or rather a group of mental pro- 



36 The Method of Psychology 

cesses. Hence the consciousness which contained the idea is 
intruded on by other processes from the moment that you begin 
to introspect. What are these other processes that make up 
introspection? In other words: what changes do you find set 
up in consciousness by your attempt to introspect an idea (say, 
that of an elephant) while it is still passing through your mind ? 

(6) You may test the power of bias in this way. Make a 
series of coloured papers, choosing those that are as nearly as 
possible of the same brightness, that range from pure red to a 
pronounced bluish red. Cut a circle, of about 2 cm. diameter, 
from each sheet. Give the observer a rolled tube of black card- 
board to look through. Tell him that you are going to show 
him a series of reds, beginning with pure bright red and passing 
into very dark red ; and ask him to say when the first really dark 
red comes. Now lay the circles one by one on the table, in the 
order from red to bluish red, letting the observer see each in 
turn for some 2 sec. See how far the series can go before he 
says : '^ The reds are not getting darker ; they^re getting bluer ! '^ 

Or take a long piece of wire. Let the subject close his eyes, 
and give him one end to hold. Tell him that you are going to 
put the other end in a candle flame, and ask him to say when he 
senses the heat. Take the other end in your hand ; walk up to 
the table on which the subject knows the candle stands, and 
strike a match, — but do not light the candle. Notice by the 
seconds' hand of your watch how long it is before the subject 
senses the imaginary heat. If the experiment fails, he is already 
so far an impartial observer; but probably it will not fail. 

(7) What are the characteristics of a good ^subject'? Of a 
good experimenter? 

(8) Can you get from psychological observation and experi- 
ment any advantages, in the way of mental training, which you 
cannot get from observation and experiment in the other sci- 
ences ? 

References 

James, Textbook^ pp. 160-175. 
Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., ch. ii. 
Titchener, Outline^ §§ 9, 10, 33. 
Wundt, Lectures^ Lect. I., § 3. 
Wundt, Outlines^ § 3. 



% 



CHAPTER III 

Sensation 

§ 1 6. Sensations and their Classification. — A sensa- 
tion is an elementary mental process. It cannot be 
split up, by the most persistent introspection under 
the strictest conditions, into any simpler processes. 

It is a characteristic of sensation that it comes to Definiion of 
consciousness by way of a special bodily organ, a ^^^^^^^^"• 
sense-organ. Or, in more technical language, its 
bodily condition is the stimulation of some particular 
bodily organ. We are accustomed to think that 
there are five of these sense-organs : eye, ear, nose 
mouth and skin. Scientific investigation has shown, 
however, that there are more than twice that num- 
ber. 

Remember that a sensation never occurs quite alone in our 
mind ; consciousness is always made up of more than one pro- 
cess. We can, however, get an approximately pure sensation 
by experiment. We shut off distracting stimuli, and focus our 
attention upon some single process in consciousness {cf. § 8) . 

Remember, too, that the • particular bodily organ ' may mean 
either (i) the external organ, like eye or ear, or (2) the part 
of the brain cortex to which the nerves from eye or ear run {cf. 
§ 14, and Question 11, p. 23). 

As every sensation is set up in some definite The different 
bodily organ, we shall, naturally, classify sensations sation. 
by grouping them under the organs through which 
they come. We shall thus have eye sensations, nose 
sensations, skin sensations, etc., to describe and dis- 

37 



38 Sensation 

cuss. There are, however, some organs that give us 
more than one set of sensations : thus the ear, which 
we think of as giving us only sensations of hearing, 
really gives us a very different sensation as well, — 
the sensation of giddiness. And there are different 
organs that furnish similar sensations : thus not only 
the skin, but the joints also, furnish the sensation 
of pressure. The reason is simple. What we call 
the ear contains two different cell-groups, connected 
by nerves with different parts of the cortex; while 
skin and joint contain similar cell-groups, connected 
with the same or similar parts of the cortex. We 
shall, of course, take account of these facts in making 
out our list of sensations. 

§ 1 7. Sensations from the Eye. — The eye is the 

most elaborate and the most important of the instru- 
ments by which we gain, knowledge of the outside 
world. It is a single sense-organ, and all the sensa- 
tions that come through it are sensations of one 
kind, — sensations of sight. But the human eye has 
* evolved ' ; it is the final product of a long course of 
development, during which the organ has gradually 
become more and more delicate. Hence we can 
distinguish two strata of sight sensations ; a lower, 
primitive layer, which dates as far back as the exist- 
ence of the organ of sight itself ; and a later, more 
complicated layer, which has appeared more recently. 
The primitive sensations are those of black, white 
Sensations of and grey. We can distinguish a large number of 
ng ness. ^h^sc brightness sensations^ as they are called. But 
there can be no doubt that the general difference 



§17. Sensations from the Eye 39 

between black and white, light and dark, is sensed 

even by the eye-specks of the jelly-fish. The later 

sensations are those of colour. 

Colour sensations fall into four series or lines. Sensations of 

The first runs from red to yellow, through reddish 

yellow or orange ; the second from yellow to green, 

through yellowish green ; the third from green to 

blue, through greenish blue ; the fourth from blue 

back again to red, through bluish red (violet and 

purple). All the colours but purple are contained 

in the rainbow, and in the artificial rainbow, the 

solar spectrum. 

In ordinary conversation we speak of black, white and grey 
as * colours.' Notice that they belong to a different group of 
sensations from the true colours, and that they should be called 
^ brightnesses ' or ^ colourless visual sensations.' 

The best way to understand the eye is to think of it as The eye a 

a photographic camera. It has an automatic diaphragm, photographic 
1--/1-11 r 1,- camera. 

the ins (the circle that we refer to when we speak of 
'brown' or ^blue' eyes), which regulates the opening of 
the pupil according to illumination. Behind the iris, in the 
pupil, is a lens which focusses automatically, — not by 
coming forwards or retiring inwards, but by altering its 
curvature. Behind the lens is a dark chamber. The back 
wall of this chamber is covered by a sensitive film, the 
nervous network or retina, upon which visual images are 
formed. The film is self-renewing, so that images can 
succeed one another upon it very rapidly. The action of 
hght upon it sets up processes of chemical decomposition, 
just as in the real photographic plate. (ZT., Lesson IX. ; - 
iV., ch. xliii.) 

Even if we knew nothing of the eyes of lower animals, Sensations of 
we should be forced to believe that the brightness sensa- brightness 

, . . . . , , r 1 ^1 • ^^^ older 

tions are more primitive than those of colour. Objects may than those of 
be black or white or grey ; they need not show the faintest colour. 



40 



Sensation 



The system 
of sight sen- 
sations. 



trace of colour. But we never see a ^ pure ' colour ; every 
colour that we know is really a mixture of pure colour with 
brightness. If you look at a spectrum in very faint light, 
you do not see any colour in it at all ; you see a band of 
grey. Evidently, then, this grey must be present in the 
colours when you do see them. Again : people may be 
perfectly colour-blind, and still see things in the world as 
black and white and grey. But if people are brightness- 
blind, if they do not see black and white and grey, they 
are totally blind and do not see anything. And again : the 
retina has a more comphcated structure in the central than 
in the surrounding parts of its surface. But it is only in 
the central parts that we see all the colours ; as we move 
out over the outlying parts we gradually lose the colour 
sense, until finally, at the edges of the retina, we see nothing 
but brightness. 

In order to get an idea of the enormous number of sight 
sensations, — brightnesses and colours (remember that 
' colours * are really mixtures of pure colour and brightness), 
— it is worth while to make a diagram. 



\ 



Suppose that we have a square surface (a piece of card or 
paper), which is tinted a neutral ^x^^^ — a grey that lies exactly 
half-way between dead black and brilliant white. Leaving the 
grey in the centre, we work outwards towards the edge of the 

square, mixing in more and more colour as 
we go. At the four corners we put the four 
principal coloviv^, the end-colours of the four 
colour series (red, yellow, green and blue) ; 
^^ along the sides come the intermediate col- 
ours. When the surface of the square is 
filled in, we have on it all the possible sen- 
sations which can be built up from neutral 
grey, — all those which are of the same 
brightness-value as that grey ; beginning with the grey itself, and 
ending with the purest colours that can be got with this grey in 
them. Thus, passing from green to the centre we have green, 
slightly grey green, greyer green, still greyer green, . . . grey ; 
and similarly with the other colours (Fig. i). 




J- 



§ I/. Sensations from the Eye 



41 



Now we take a second card, tinted a little darker grey, and 
mix in our colours as before. The corner colours will be differ- 
ent ; red will be getting a tinge of reddish brown, yellow a tinge 
of brown, green a touch of olive and blue a touch of indigo. 
Since we cannot distinguish so many shades between this darker 
grey and reddish brown, etc., as between the neutral grey and 
red, etc., our square will be a little smaller than the former square 

We take a third square, tinted 
a little lighter grey, and proceed 
as before. Red now verges to 
flesh-colour ; yellow to straw- 
colour ; green becomes pale 
green ; blue tends towards sky- 
blue. Our square is again a 
little smaller than the first was. 

So we go on, until our central 
grey becomes dead black in the 
one direction and brilliant white 
in the other : the squares grow f^ 
smaller and smaller, till at last 
(at black and white) we have 
only points, not surfaces at all. 
Laying the squares together, in 
the right order, we have a double 
pyramid (Fig. 2) . The line join- 
ing apex to apex is the black- 
grey-white line ; the square base 
is surrounded by the purest 
colours that we can get ; the out- 
side surface shows the browns, 
olives, pinks, pale greens, etc. : and wherever we cut into the 
pyramid we have a sensation-line running from a given colour 
to a given grey. When all the sensations are counted up, they 
amount to more than 30,000. 

The explanation of sight sensations, the statement of their Hering's 
bodily conditions, is a difficult matter, and the reader must ^^^^^ °^ 
take it largely on trust. The most satisfactory explanation 
that we have at present we owe to Professor Hering, now 
professor of physiology in the University of Leipsic. In its 
latest form it is briefly as follows : 




vision. 



42 Sensation 

(i) There are in the ^ visual apparatus ' (retina, or parts of 
the brain connected with it, or both) three chemical substances 
that are differently affected by light (/.^., by ether waves). 

(2) Each substance is the seat of two chemical processes, 
^(^composition and r^composition. The two processes are 
attended by two different sensations in each case. In one 
substance, the processes give us white and black ; in another, 
red and green ; in the third, yellow and blue. There are 
thus six different chemical processes that can be set up in 
the retina ; and from the six /;^/;^<r/^^/ sensations accompany- 
ing them we can get the whole sum of sight sensations. 
Pale purple, e.g,, means a mixture of the white-process, the 
red-process and the blue-process ; all three substances are 
called upon to furnish it. 

(3) The black-white substance is affected by every light 
stimulus ; the other two substances only by certain forms of 
stimulus. 

(4) If red and green light fall upon the same part of the 
retina, the colours cancel each other, and nothing is left but 
a sensation of grey. This is because the chemical processes 
of decomposition and recomposition are antagonistic or op- 
posite processes ; they work against each other in the visual 
substance. — The same thing is true of yellow and blue. 

If black and white fall on the same part of the retina, 
however, we see a mixture of black and white, a grey ; there 
seems to be no canceUing of black by white, as there is of 
green by red. Really, black and white do cancel each other 
in the retina ; there is no grey-process there. But the corti- 
cal cells with which the optic nerve is connected are always 
in a state of commotion (owing to changes of temperature, 
etc.), whether there is a stimulus before the eye or not; and 
this commotion gives us the * intrinsic ' or ^ subjective ' sight 
sensation, the sensation of grey. (See F., 902.) 

Sensations of § 1 8. Sensations from the Ear. — Next in impor- 
noise and tancc to the evc stands the ear. Sensations of hear- 

tone. -^ 

ing, like those of sight, have evolved or developed; 



§ 1 8. Sensations from the Ear 43 

and we can distinguish two stages of hearing sensa- 
tions, (i) sensations of noise and (2) sensations of 
tone. But we can go back a step farther. All sen- 
sations of hearing have been in some way developed 
from sensations of jar or shake, which were not 
heard at all. 

The human ear is extremely complicated ; but it 
has kept some of the primitive shake-organs along- 
side of the later growth. The shake-organ, as we 
have it ourselves now, has nothing to do with hear- 
ing, and must therefore be treated of separately. 

ia) The Ear as Organ of Hearing. — Our sensations 
of hearing are (i) sensations of simple noise ^ corre- 
sponding to the brightness sensations of the eye, and 
(2) sensations of t07ie^ corresponding to colour sensa- 
tions. A noise is hard and unmusical ; it is set up 
by a shock or jerk of the air-particles. A tone is 
smooth and musical ; its stimulus is a repeated wave- 
movement of the air-particles. The pop of a soap- 
bubble is a noise ; the sound that you get by blowing 
across the mouth of a bottle is a tone. 

Although tones and noises sound together far more often 
than they sound separately, and mix very readily, their mixt- 
ure is never complete enough to give us a simple sensation, 
as that of colour and brightness does. The ' tone ' of a vio- 
lin owes a good deal of its effectiveness to the noise made 
by scraping the bow over the strings ; but we are quite well 
able to distinguish the scrape from the accompanying musi- 
cal tone. 

A tone diagram would be a spiral line, like a screw-thread, 
with the deepest bass tone at the one end, the shrillest treble tone 
at the other, and the rest arranged in musical order between the 
two. Round each circle of the spiral are set the tones that we 



44 



Sensation 



The ear a 
piano. 



Sensation of 
giddiness. 



can distinguish within the limits of an octave. The line must be 
made spiral, i.e.^ must keep returning as it advances towards the 
point from which it started, because the tones that bound an 
octave are more nearly like each other than any other two tones 
upon the scale ; just as the colours that bound the spectrum, red 
and violet, are more like each other than are any other two col- 
ours in the spectral series. On the screw-thread these limiting 
tones lie directly above and below one another. Music employs 
only about 90 of the 11,000 tones that we can distinguish. The 
reasons for this curious fact we shall discuss later (§ 42). — The 
noise diagram would be a straight and much shorter line ; we 
cannot distinguish nearly so many noises as tones ; and there is 
no recurring likeness of noise to noise, to make the line a spiral. 

If the eye is a little camera, the organ of hearing is a tiny 
piano : a piano with a keyboard for the air to play on, with 
11,000 strings behind the keyboard, and with a damper to 
stop the movement of the strings after they have sounded. 
(That is why we can speak so quickly ; the sound of each 
word is damped before the next word comes.) When the 
pianist is a system of air-waves, we hear a tone ; when it is 
an air-shock, a noise. Generally, several pianists of both 
kinds are playing together. (ZT., 215 ff. ; N,, chs. xxxiv. ff.) 

{b) The Ear as Organ of Equilibrium. — The part 
of the ear which resembles the primitive shake- 
organ gives us the sensation, not of tone or noise 
or, indeed, of hearing at all, but of giddiness. Gid- 
diness means that we have been shaken, our physi- 
cal balance disturbed, — that we are in danger of 
falling. Hence though it is very unpleasant, it is 
also very useful. 

We might lose our balance in three ways : by confusing 
up with down, back with front, right with left. And there 
are three shake-organs in each ear, which help us to keep 
our balance steadily in these three directions of space. 
Nod your head sharply up or down, turn it sharply to right 
or left, drop it sharply towards the one shoulder or the 




§ 1 9- Sensations from the Skin 45 

other ; in every case you will get a momentary giddiness. 

(^., 729-) 

Fig. 3 shows a model of a single shake-organ. The grain of 
sand, s^ is balanced on 
the hairs coming from a 
group of cells which are 
connected with a nerve, 
fi. You can easily see 
that a shake of the air or ^^^ 

water surrounding the ^^^^ ^ 

organ would shift the ' ^ 

balance of the grain upon the hairs and bend some of the hairs 
down. In this way an excitation would be set up in the nerve, 
and carried to the brain. 

§ 19. Sensations from the Skin. — The skin is an Sensations of 
organ of a very different character from the eye or temperature 
the ear. For it is not merely a sense-organ : it has ^^^ p^^^* 
to do a great deal for the body, besides furnishing 
sensations for consciousness. Thus it protects the 
underlying organs from injury, it carries the hair and 
nails, it contains oil-glands and sweat-glands. But 
there are in it, notwithstanding, no less than three 
distinct kinds of sense-organs. One tells us of the 
weight of objects (sensation of pressure)] another of 
their temperature (sensations of heat and cold) ; and 
a third of the injury they are doing us (sensation of 
pain). 

You cannot get these four sensations from any and every 
part of the skin ; their organs are sprinkled or dotted over its 
surface. They are all, probably, very old sensations ; press- 
ure and pain, at any rate, are older even than white and 
black and noise. And their bodily organs are simple ; just 
little bunches of nerve-fibrils, sometimes lying by themselves, 
and sometimes twined round the root of a hair or a few cells, 
in the thickness of the skin. (ZT., 206 ff.; F., 1037, 1044.) 



46 Sensation 

§ 20. Sensations from the Mouth and Nose. — We 

may treat of these two organs together, because 
their sensations are intimately blended in everyday 
experience, and because the office of both of them 
is to stand guard over digestion, to secure the health 
of the internal bodily organs. 
Sensations of {o) The mucous membrane of the mouth is sensi- 

t3.StG 

tive to pressure, heat and cold, and pain. But we 
also get, from various parts of the cavity of the 
mouth, the four sensations of taste: sweet, bitter, 
sour and salt. 

It is at first difficult to believe that there are no more 
than four distinct tastes. But what we call ^ taste ' in ordi- 
nary conversation is for the most part a mixture of smell 
and taste. The reason that we cannot * taste' things when 
we have a cold in the head is that the nasal passages are 
blocked, so that we cannot smelL A good deal of our daily 
food is absolutely tasteless. 

Taste At different parts of the tongue and at the back of the 

mouth we find little bottle-shaped pits. The mouth of the 
bottle receives the taste stimulus (the sweet, etc., substance). 
Inside the bottle are the taste cells, from which the nerve runs 
through the bottom of the bottle to the brain. (^., 209.) 

Sensations of {U) There are two patches of mucous membrane in 

crrjpll 

the two nostrils which give us sensations of smelL 
We know that there are a great many kinds of smell; 
and there seem to be groups or classes of smell sensa- 
tions, like those of tone and noise, or brightness and 
colour. But we cannot yet say how many there are, 
or which are the more primitive. 

The smell cells carry hairs, which project into the cavity 
of the nose, and catch the odorous particles as they are 
carried into the nostrils by breathing. {^H., 211.) 



§ 21. Sensations from Internal Organs 47 

The organ of smell is thus more simple even than that of taste. 
It may be that, in man, the organ of smell is degenerating, while that 
of taste is not changing. This would account for the difficulty that we 
have in deciding the number of different smells that can be distin- 
guished. On the one hand, the nose is very readily fatigued; on 
the other, the smell-brain does not function well, — we have largely 
lost the power of discriminative attention to smells. 

§ 21. Sensations from Internal Organs. — A last, and 
by no means unimportant source of sensations is to 
be found in certain internal bodily organs. With two 
sets of these, (i) and (2) below, we are fairly well 
acquainted ; of the rest, brought together under (3), 
we know very little. 

(i) Bone, Mitscle, Tendon. — The bones of the body 
turn in sockets. They are moved by the muscles, 
which are tied to them by sinews or tendons. We 
have from the muscles sensations of pressure and 
pain ; from the sinews a new sensation, that of strain ; strain. 
and from the joints or bone-sockets the familiar sen- 
sation oi pressicre. 

(2) The Alime7itary Canal. — The body is not solid ; Hunger, 
it is pierced by the alimentary canal, whose duty is nausea, 
to take in food and get rid of waste. From the 
upper parts of this canal we have three new sensa- 
tions. The extreme back of the mouth and top of the 
throat give us thirst ; the tube running from mouth 

to stomach, nausea or sickness ; the stomach itself, 
hunger. No new sensations come from the intestines. 

(3) It is probable that the lungs, blood-vessels and stuffiness, 
bladder furnish new sensations. We have lung sen- ^ ^ ^"^' ^ ^' 
sations in ' bracing ' and ' stuffy ' feelings ; blood- 
vessel sensations in tingling, itching, and * pins and 
needles ' ; and bladder sensations in the ' stir up ' of the 

inside organs that comes, e.g., with the emotion of fear. 



48 



Sensation 



The sense-organs dotted over the surface of the joints 
resemble those found in the skin. On the other hand, the 
nerves that run to the brain from muscle and tendon start 
from organs which are peculiar to these tissues. Neverthe- 
less, the muscle sensation of pressure is not distinguishable 
from the skin sensation of pressure. There may possibly be 
a special sensation of muscular fatigue : but this is very 
doubtful. The organs of hunger, thirst and nausea are not 
known, though the sensations can be localised in the mucous 
membrane of stomach, soft palate and oesophagus respec- 
tively. {H.^ 176, 203; F., 1048, 1059.) 

The ' sensation ' of tickling is really a complex of sensa- 
tions. It contains a light pressure sensation ; a sensation of 
temperature, a thrill of warmth or shiver of cold ; a sensa- 
tion due to change of blood-circulation, of the same kind as 
tingUng and itching ; and, probably, a number of muscular 
pressures, due to the spasmodic contraction of the muscle- 
sheet lying just below the part of the skin to which the weak 
stimulus is applied. 

Fig. 4. (which is not quite accurate, from the physical stand- 
point, but still accurate 
enough for our present 
purpose) shows how the 
sensations set up in 
muscle and tendon may 
vary independently of 
each other. The four 
diagrams represent the 
arm, bent at the elbow- 
joint ; the upper and 
lower arms are held to- 
gether by a muscle, from 
either end of which ten- 
dons run to the bones. 
In a and b there is the 
same degree of muscular 
contraction, though the 



a 





s 




^ 




Fig. 4 




pull upon the tendons is very different ; in c and ct the strain is 
the same, but the muscles are differently contracted. 



§ 22. Intensity of Sensations 49 

§ 22. Intensity of Sensations. — So far we have Quality and 
been considering only one aspect of sensations, their sensations. 
quality. Quality is what makes one sensation differ- 
ent from another. All the different tints and hues of 
colour are qualities of sight sensations ; the shades of 
grey, the differences of tonal pitch, the kinds of smell, 
are all qualities. A red which differs from another 
red in hue is a different sensation ; a tone which 
differs from another tone in pitch is a different sen- 
sation. 

But a sensation may remain the same sensation, 
the same pitch or tint or smell, and yet vary in 
strength or intensity. A pressure may be the press- 
ure of an ounce or of a pound ; it is always pressure, 
one quality, but its strength differs. The tone that 
you get by blowing across the mouth of a bottle may 
be loud or faint, though it is still the same pitch, 
the same tone. The weight you carry may strain 
your arm very little or a great deal ; the sensation of 
strain from the tendons of the arm is the same in 
both cases, but the amount of it is different. 

Here a very interesting question arises : the ques- Relation of 
tion whether, if I add to the amount of stimulus (add intensity to 
to the heaviness of the weie^ht, or the stren2:th of the f^^^atmn 

^ ' ^ intensity. 

sound, or the illuminating power of the light) I add 
in equal measure to the intensity of the correspond- 
ing sensation. Of course, the strain of carrying three 
pounds is greater than the strain of carrying one : 
but is the strain sensation in the first case three times 
as strong as the strain sensation in the second } The 
answer to the question is given by what is called 
Weber's Law. 

£ 



so 



Sensation 



Weber's 
law. 




Its useful- 
ness. 



§ 23. Weber's Law. — Suppose that I have laid a 
pound weight in the scale, and measured out a pound 
of sugar. If I add another pound weight, I must 
have twice as much sugar to balance the scales ; if 
I add a third pound, three times as much sugar ; and 
so on. 

Now suppose that I am measuring, not sugar, but 
the sensation of pressure. A pound weight on the 
skin gives me a sensation of pressure, P, Two 
pounds give me a stronger pressure, — let us say, 
P + p. Will three pounds give me P + 2p} 

Experiment says no. If my pressure sensations 
are to be P, P +/, P + 2p, P + 3/, etc., then the 
weights used must be i lb., 2 lbs., 4 lbs., 8 lbs., 
etc. That is: if the third pressure is to be as 
much stronger than the second as the second was 
than the first, then the third weight must be pro- 
portionately as much larger than the second as 
the second was larger than the first. To get 
{P + p) — P = {P + 2p) -{P + p\ we must have 
second weight : first = third : second (or, using num- 
bers, 2 lbs. : I lb. = 4 lbs. : 2 lbs.). , 

The usefulness of this law is clear. We can find our way 
about in the world, recognise our clothes, books, furniture, 
etc., as well on a dull day as in the most brilliant sunshine. 
The relation of the brightnesses remains the same in all cases ; 
and a difference that is relatively the same for stimuli is abso- 
lutely the same for sensation. It is the same principle that 
enables us to appreciate pictures, — to see that this paint- 
ing represents a seascape, and this a moonlight effect. And 
it is the same principle that enables us to recognise a musical 
melody, although it may now be played in quite a different 
key from that in which we are familiar with it. — The reasons 



Questions and Exercises 51 

for the law are to be looked for in the physiological behav- 
iour of nervous substance. We cannot enter upon them 
here. 

E. H. Weber (i 795-1878), after whom the law is named, was 
professor of physiology in the University of Leipsic. It may 
interest the reader to know of one of Weber's own experiments : 
in the text above we have been merely ^supposing.' Weber 
found, then, in experiments with weights, that it is just as difficult 
to distinguish between the pressure of 29 and 30 half-ounces as 
between those of 29 and 30 drachms ; although the difference of 
weight in the first case is four times as great as it is in the second 
(i oz. = 8 dr.). Sameness of difference in sensation means pro- 
portional sameness of difference between stimuli. 



Questions and Exercises 

(i) Sight. (Try to account for the results of these experiments 
by applying Hering's explanation to them.) 

(^) The laws of colour mixture. 

1. Mix on the colour-top (not with pigments) two 

neighbouring colours ; red and orange, indigo and 
violet, etc. Notice that the result is a colour that 
lies midway for sensation between the two chosen. 

2. Mix two complementary or antagonistic colours, to 

get grey. With the coloured papers (which do 
not give Hering's colours exactly) you will not get 
a grey from red and green ; you must take red 
and bluish green. The yellow and blue will be 
very nearly, if not exactly, complementary. 

3. Mix three colours to get grey : red, yellow, greenish 

blue ; red, green, violet ; etc. 

4. Mix all the spectral colours, and all the spectral 

colours with purple, to get grey. 

(d) The persistence of vision ; after-images. 

5. Look steadily at a red patch on a white ground. 

After 20 sec. remove the red, and you will see a 
patch of the antagonistic colour (bluish green). 
Try with all the colours, and with black. Try 
with white, on a black ground. 



52 Sensation 

{c) Indirect vision. 

6. Bandage the left eye, and look steadily with the 
right at a white point on a black screen. Let an 
assistant move a coloured patch (held on a black 
straw) from the white point outwards (to your 
right) along the screen. You see the white 
point with the centre, the moving colour with 
outlying parts of the retina. Notice that the 
colour changes, as it moves ; and that finally you 
see no colour at all, but simply a black or grey. 
— Or tack the coloured patch to a vv^all, some 
distance to the right of the observing eye. 
Look straight at the wall in front of you ; and 
then gradually turn the eye outwards, toward 
the patch. Notice the change of colour, as the 
eye moves. 

(jd) Contrast. 

7. Lay a red patch on a white sheet 
of paper, and cover both with 
white tissue-paper. The white 
surface will seem slightly tinged 
with bluish green. 

8. Cut discs like that of Fig. 5 (where 
^^ the white parts stand for white, 

the black for black, and the 
shaded parts for some colour) 
^^^- 5 and spin them on the colour-top. 

If the colour is orange, you see a yellowish sur- 
face with a bluish ring; if it is green, a pale 
greenish surface with a purplish ring ; etc. 

Contrast is due, on Hering's explanation, to the physiological 
reciprocity of the different regions of the retina. If (^^composi- 
tion is set up at one point of the retina, r^composition is set up 
in the neighbouring parts, and vice versa. If we look at a blue 
patch on a grey ground, we have, as direct effect of the stimulus, 
a sensation of blue ; as its indirect effect, a sensation of yellow- 
grey over the parts of the grey ground that adjoin the blue patch. 
— Other writers regard contrast as a case of apperceptive illusion 
(see below, p. 117). In all probability, however, Hering's view 
is correct. 




Questions and Exercises 



53 



\2) Hearing. 

{a) Discrimination of tones. 

9. Take six short pieces of gutta-percha tubing, and 
soften one end of each piece in warm water. 
Pinch this end together, so that the opening is 
a mere sHt. Wire the pieces to the necks of six 
bottles so that you get their tones by blowing 
into the tubing. Tune them (by pouring water 
in, as required) to two consecutive notes on the 
piano : three of them, say, to the ^, and three to 
the <:-sharp of the middle octave. This tuning 
must be done by some one with musical experi- 
ence and a good musical ear. 

Two of the bottles, a c and a ^-sharp, you set 
aside as standards. Now 
take a c bottle, and pour 
in a very little water ; thus 
raising its pitch till its tone 
is just perceptibly higher 
than that of the standard c. 
Then take the remaining c 
bottle, and raise its pitch in 
the same way, till it sounds 
just perceptibly higher than 
the c that you have already 
raised. Go on in this way 
with the two bottles, till one 
of them sounds the same 
tone as the ^-sharp standard. Note how many 
tones you can discriminate between the c and 
the ^-sharp. — At the first trial you should get 
at least 8 intermediate tones, and with practice 
many more. 

Repeat the experiment with the ^-sharp bottles, 
working downwards (by pouring water out) to- 
wards c. Note how many tones you can hear 
between the ^-sharp and the c. 

If you regard the experiment, in this form, as 
too laborious, use one of a set of Quincke's tubes 
(Fig. 7). The cork in the lower tube lowers the 
tone an octave. (TV., p. 366.) Water may be 




Fig. 6 




Fig. 7 



54 Sensation 

poured in, as required. 
Blow evenly and steadily, 
and not too strongly. 

{b) Quality of noise. 

lo. Procure a number of drug- 
gist's sample phials, of different sizes. Cork them 
firmly, and arrange them in the order of size. 
Pull the corks out sharply, in succession. You 
get ^ pops ' of different quality. 

Or blow a large and a small soap-bubble, and 
note the difference in their snap. The small 
bubble bursts with a sharp pop, the large one 
with a thud. These are qualities of noise ; there 
is no tone present. 
I The experiment is more striking if you use, 

instead of air, a mixture of hydrogen and air. 
In that case you touch the bubbles oil with a 
match. Be careful that they are well away from 
the air-hydrogen mixture before you ignite them. 

(3) Pressure and Temperature from the Skin. 

1 1 . Mark out with ink a square centimetre of skin on the 

back of the hand. Work over this lightly, in all 
directions, with a piece of pointed pith or cork. 
Move the point slowly. As it travels, sensations 
of pressure will flash out at the pressure-spots ; be- 
tween the spots you will have no pressure sensa- 
tion. Make a map of the spots on a square cm. 
of cross-section paper, putting down an ink-dot 
for every spot. 

12. Work over the same place with a pointed metal 

tube filled first with hot and then with cold 
water. Sensations of heat and cold will flash 
out at the temperature spots in the same way ; 
between the spots you will have no temperature 
sensation. Make maps of the hot and cold spots. 
Compare the three maps and see which has the 
most spots, and on what patterns the spots are 
arranged. — Does introspection show any differ- 
ences between the sensations of pressure, heat and 
cold, over and above their qualitative differences? 



Questions and Exercises 55 

(4) Muscle, Tendon and Joint. 

13. Hold your arm out straight, and fold it slowly in 

towards your chest. Notice the pressures in the 
muscles of the fore and upper arms and in the 
elbow joint. 

14. Clench your fist, slowly. Distinguish the pressures 

on the skin, the pressures in muscles and joints, 
and the strain in the tendons. 

(5) Taste. 

15. Prepare a number of ^tastes' in solution. Stop the 

nose with cotton wool, and apply the solutions 
carefully to the tip of the tongue with a camePs- 
hair brush. You will get none but the four 
tastes mentioned above. 

16. Note the contrast of tastes. Brush sweet along 

one side of the tongue. Then brush salt or acid 
along the other side ; the sweet becomes notice- 
ably sweeter. 

(6) Smell. 

17. Note the antagonism of smells {cf. colours). Make 

paper funnels, and sniff through them at india- 
rubber with one nostril, and at beeswax with the 
other. If the substances are taken in the right 
proportions, you get no smell at all. 

(7) What sensations do you get in the act of yawning? What 

in that of swallowing? What unusual sensations do you 
have, from the face, after you have been running hard? 

(8) Suppose that you pared off the top of the colour-pyramid, 

at any given height above the base : what would you see 
upon the cut surfaces (planes of latitude) ? Suppose that 
you peeled the figure like an onion ; what would you see 
upon the total surface thus exposed? Suppose that you 
halved the figure longitudinally, cutting from WRB to the 
axis, and thence on to WGB : what would you see upon 
the cut surfaces? — Should the base of the double pyramid 
lie in its present plane, or should it be tilted? In which 
direction ? Can you suggest any other modifications ? 

(9) Work out the anatomy and physiology of the organ of gid- 

diness (§ 18, U) in greater detail. (/^, pp. 729 ff.) 
(10) To test Weber's law, take two small weights which, when 
laid successively on the palm of the hand, exert clearly 
different pressures. Now double the lighter weight, and 
find by repeated trial how heavy a fourth weight must be. 



56 Sensation 

if it is to differ as much in sensation from the double 
weight as the heavier of the first pair differed from the 
lighter. — You can make the weights of coarse shot, tied 
in little chamois leather bags ; and you can take a single 
shot as unit of weight, without actually weighing the bags. 

Or proceed in this way. Take two glass funnels, of 
equal weight ; two largish bags of shot, of equal weight ; 
and a number of very small bags, also of equal weight. 
One funnel is weighted only with a large bag ; this gives 
the standard weight, a. The other is weighted with a 
large bag, and with one or more of the small bags, as the 
experiment requires ; this is the variable weight, b. Find 
by repeated trials what weight b must have if it is to be 
just noticeably heavier than a in sensation. Lift the 
funnels successively in each experiment, raising them to 
a marked height above the table. Keep the arm very 
steady, bending only at the elbow joint ; avoid any shift- 
ing of the weight in the hand. Estimate the weights on 
the basis of a double (up and down) movement. Having 
made b just noticeably heavier than a^ take b as your 
standard, and add to a till it is just noticeably heavier 
than b ; then reverse the procedure again, and so on. 

If we represent the first standard by i, the series 
obtained will be approximately: i, fj, ffj, \\%%\y etc. 
When sensations are just noticeably different in intensity, 
their stimuli differ by the same relative amount in each 
case. For lifted weights (strain sensations) this constant 
relative difference is about one-thirtieth. Hence we have 
the series : 

I I 4- JL of T li 4- J- of 3 1 9 61 I JL of ^-§^1 etc 
•^> •■• ^ 30 ^^ ^? 30 ' 30 ^*- 30? 9CrO ^ 30 ^^ 900' ^^^' 



References 

James, Textbook^ pp. 9-77. 
Sully, Human Mind, vol. I., pp. 81-132. 
Titchener, Outline, §§ 7, 8, 11-30. 
Wundt, Lectures, Lects. 1 1. -VII. 
Wundt, Outlines, §§ 5, 6. 

See also : E. C. Sanford, A Course in Experimeiital Psychology, 
1898. 



CHAPTER IV 

Affection and Feeling 

§ 24. The Two Kinds of Affection. — We not only 
sense stimuli ; we also feel or are affected by them. 
We say, ''How delightfully cool it is here!" and 
''What a delicious fragrance this flower has!" and 
" You must have had a very unpleasant conversa- 
tion ! " The coolness and fragrance and conversa- 
tion are all made up of sensations ; but the delight 
and pleasantness and disagreeableness are affective 
processes. 

Let us see, now, what affection is. We know that Life is a 

^ , , . , . balance of 

there are two opposite processes always gomg on opposing 
in the body : processes of decay, and processes of ^°^^^^ 
renewal. We all tend to decay, to die ; but we eat 
and drink and sleep, and so renew our strength for 
living. Life, then, means that the body is holding 
its own against the forces that would destroy it ; 
living means a balance between the building-up and 
the pulling-down processes. 

Think of the living body as a lump of jelly, stand- and the 
ing on its base, but not standing very firmly. All nanceTf' 
over the surface of the lump are little dents or pits. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ 

at a given 

These represent the sense-organs, the channels by moment is 
which the things and processes of the outside world ^^ ^If^ction 
gain access to consciousness. Every time that a 
stimulus forces its way into one of the dents, the 

57 



58 Affection and Feeling 

whole lump is tilted, — tilted towards a position of 
greater or less steadiness. The conscious processes 
that accompany this tilt are affections. If the tilt is 
for the good of the lump, the affection is pleasant- 
ness ; if for its harm, unpleasantness. 

If the organism is balanced as at a of the Figure, a 

stimulus coming in 



r">s 



i^ 



„ „- the direction of the 
arrow will tend to 




a 

overthrow it, /.<?., will 

be unpleasant. If the 
organism is balanced 

as in b, the stimulus will tend to restore its equilibrium, /.<f., 

will be pleasant. 

Do not confuse, this ^equilibrium' with that of § i8. There 
we were talking of the actual balance of the body in space ; of 
our standing upright or staggering and falling. Here we mean 
by •^equilibrium' the balance of growth and decay, of waste and 
renewal, that the living body shows us. 

Do not think, either, that every stimulus is a life-and-death 
matter. Many stimuli that are sensed are not felt at all; the 
tilt is too slight. — 

And lastly, do not suppose that everything which is pleasant 
to yoic^ under your particular circumstances, is good for you. 
Nature strikes averages ; she does not look after the individual. 
Pleasant things are good on the average, — good for the per- 
fectly healthy, adult animal, living under natural conditions. 
Man is a domesticated animal, living like sheep and oxen under 
artificial conditions ; and there are many things pleasant to 
particular men which are not for their good, do not conduce to 
their upbuilding. Nevertheless, the rule holds as a rule of 
averages. Oil the whole ^ what is pleasant is for the advantage 
of the organism. 

Definition of Affcction, then, is an elementary conscious process 
a ec ion. which may be set up by the stimulation of anj/ bodily 
organ. And while we find some 50,000 different 
sensations, we find only two different affections. 



§ 2 5- Feeling 59 

§ 25. Feeling. — No affection, or mixture of affec- Definition of 
tions, ever appears in consciousness alone. Affec- 
tion always comes with the stimulation of some 
organ, and consequently always comes together with 
the sensatioji from some organ. When we have in 
consciousness a complex process made up of sensa- 
tion and pleasantness or unpleasantness, — and when 
the affective side of the process, its pleasantness 
or unpleasantness, strikes us more forcibly than 
the sense-side of it, — we call the total process a 
feeling. 

It is clear, if we work through the list of sensa- Some sensa- 
tions, that some of them enter into feelings much in°to^fedings 
more readily than others. Thus (i) black, white more readily 

than others. 

and grey are hardly ever very pleasant or unpleas- 
ant. We are so familiar with them (in printing and 
writing, in our clothes, etc.) that they have ceased to 
affect us. Only when a light is so dazzling that the 
sensation of pain is set up in the muscles of the eye 
do we feel it to be unpleasant. The same thing is 
true, though in slightly less degree, of colours. A 
simple colour rarely enters into a feeling ; we are so 
constantly surrounded with coloured objects (carpet, 
wall-paper, pictures, book-covers, clothes, houses, 
grass, sky, etc.) that we have grown used to colour. 
(2) Giddiness is never anything but unpleasant. But 
noise and tone, like brightness and colour, we have 
always with us (sounds in the house or street, our 
own and our friends' voices) ; so that they affect us 
but little. (3) Sensations from the skin differ among 
themselves. Pure pressure-feelings are rare; tem- 
perature-feelings (oppressive heat, bitter cold) are 



6o Affection and Feeling 

quite common ; while pain, like giddiness, is natu- 
rally unpleasant. (4) Tastes and smells affect us 
so much that we are apt to speak of them sim^ply 
as 'agreeable' or * disagreeable,' without troubling to 
think of their sensation-names. (5) Strain may be 
pleasant or unpleasant or neither. Hunger and 
thirst are always either pleasant or unpleasant ; 
nausea is always unpleasant. But most important of 
all for the arousal of feelings are the stimulations 
of internal bodily organs that call forth the obscure 
sensations mentioned in § 21 (3). It is just because 
these sensations are swamped, so to speak, by 
pleasantness or unpleasantness that they are so dif- 
ficult to introspect as sensations. 

Remember that we are speaking now of sensations, and 
not of perceptions or ideas, which are groups of sensations. 
We get some of our keenest pleasures from sights and 
sounds, — from beautiful paintings and statues, or from 
music, — but these pleasures come from mixtures or groups 
of colours and tones, not from simple sensations. 

Oftentimes the pleasantness of a perception outweighs 
the unpleasantness of a sensation. Thus children will twirl 
round and round, from pleasure in rhythmical movement 
(perception), although they know that the giddiness (sen- 
sation) which will follow the twirling cannot be anything 
but unpleasant. 

The law of Summing up, then, we may say that the sensations 

which tell us most about the world outside the body 
(those of sight and hearing) are least likely to enter 
into feelings, while the sensations that tell us least 
about such outside matters (those from the internal 
bodily organs) hardly ever come to consciousness 
except as parts of feelings. 



§ 25. Feeling 61 

The word ^ feeling ' is used in ordinary language to mean Different 
several different processes. It will be well, for the sake of "l^^^^"^"^^ ^^ 

^ ^ the word 

clearness in our thinking, to distinguish these. 'feeling.' 

(i) Feeling is used for the perception of touch (§§ 46, 51). 
We say that a thing ' feels hard,' and we ^ feel in our pocket ' for 
something. 

(2) It is used for certain internal sensations^ whether they are 
strongly tinged by affection or not. Thus we ^ feel hungry' and 
^feel thirsty,' although the hunger and thirst may be neither 
strongly pleasant nor strongly unpleasant. 

(3) It is used for some very complicated affective processes, 
iox e7notions and moods (§ 58). Thus we ^feel angry' or ^feel 
blue.' Anger is an emotion ; ^the blues ' is a mood. 

(4) It is used, as by us here, for a mixture of affection and 
sensation in which the affection is the stronger of the two pro- 
cesses. Thus it is correct to say that we ^feel cramped,' or 
^ suffocated,' or ^ well,' or ' fresh,' or ^ drowsy ' : all these pro- 
cesses are made up of internal sensations and affection, and the 
affection dominates the whole process. It may or may not be 
correct to say that we ' feel ' hot or cold, hungry or thirsty ; it all 
depends on whether we are thinking of the sensations or their 
accompanying affections. If we ^feel bitterly cold,' or ^ jolly 
hungry,' the process is a true feeling. 

Let us introspect a true feeling, — say, the feeling of The feeling 
drowsiness, — and convince ourselves that it is made up of ^nal^^ed "^^^ 
sensation and affection. Drowsiness begins, on the sensation 
side, with a sensation of pressure on the upper eyehds, with 
a tickling in the throat that leads to yawning and so brings 
a complex of muscular sensations, and with a sensation of 
pressure at the back of the neck (the head droops) . The 
hds grow constantly heavier ; breathing gets slower and 
deeper, so that its sensations change ; the lower jaw be- 
comes heavy, so that the mouth opens and the chin falls 
forward on the breast (pressure sensations) ; the neck sen- 
sations become stronger, the head heavier; and lastly the 
hmbs grow heavy, and arrange themselves by their own 
weight. Sensations of temperature come from the surface 
of the skin, thrills of warmth running their course at different 



62 



Affection and Feeling 



Mental pro- 
cesses have 
bodily ex- 
pressions. 



The four 
bodily signs 
of affection : 



parts of limbs and trunk. Over all this mass of sensation is 
spread an affection ; an easy, comfortable pleasantness. 
And the affection outweighs the sensation ; we know better 
that we ' feel comfortable ' than that sensations are coming 
in from this or that organ. — The total process, then, has all 
the marks of a true feeHng. 

§ 26. The Bodily Signs of Affection. — Every mental 
process has some way of expressing itself through 
the body ; or, in other words, there is always some 
bodily sign or indication which tells us, if we are 
good observers, that a certain mental process is in 
our neighbour's consciousness. Sensations and ideas 
show themselves by movements, the commonest of 
which is the movement of speech. For speaking, on 
its physiological side, is a series of movements ; the 
movements of the muscles of the larynx regulate the 
passage of air through the slit formed by the vocal 
cords. Affective processes also show themselves by 
movements, and more especially (as we shall see later, 
§ 61) by movements of the muscles of the face: we 
* look ' pleased or angry, grieved or frightened. 

But affection, as we saw, corresponds in conscious- 
ness to a tilt of the whole body. We shall therefore 
expect to find that the whole body gives evidence of 
the presence of affection in consciousness. Not only 
will there be particular movements, a particular ^ play 
of feature ' or what not, to tell us that affection is 
there ; we must be able to read off from the whole 
body whether the mind is pleasantly or unpleasantly 
disposed. 

Experiment has shown that this is actually the 
case. We have no less than four ways of knov/ing, 



§ 26. The Bodily Signs of Ajfection 63 

by the general behaviour of the body, which of the 
two affective processes is tingeing the consciousness 
of the moment. We know it (i) by the state of the 
pulse ; (2) by the state of breathing ; (3) by the size 
of the body ; and (4) by the amount of muscular 
strength that can be exerted. 

(i) When we are pleased, the pulse is strong; when pulse, 
we are displeased, weak. (2) The same thing holds of breathing, 
breathing. If an experience is pleasant, we breathe more 
deeply ; if unpleasant, less deeply. In joy, we breathe in 
great breaths ; in sorrow, our breathing is short and weak. 

(3) When we are pleased, the blood flows freely into the volume, 
little blood-vessels that lie just beneath the skin ; when we 

are displeased, it is withdrawn to the internal organs of the 
body. Hence we are really larger, we ^ expand,' in pleasure, 
and ^ shrink into ourselves ' during an unpleasant experience. 

(4) When we are pleased we are stronger muscularly, we strength. 
can put out more strength, than when we are displeased. 

We ' feel stronger ' and are stronger than usual when we are 
heartily and justly angry (pleasant anger). Grief bows us 
down, crushes us, leaves us physically weaker than we were. 

If we wish to measure these bodily changes accurately, we 
must use complicated scientific instruments. But we can all 
assure ourselves, from our everyday experience, that they take 
place. And it is interesting to note, further, that a good novel- 
ist refers to them, when he is describing the signs of feeling 
in his characters. Turn, e.g.^ to David Copperfield, You will 
find the following sentence in ch. xxviii. : ^^As the step ap- 
proached, I knew it, and felt my heart beat high." Dickens has 
noticed that the heart-beat is stronger than usual when one is 
greatly pleased. In ch. lii. we have: "He looked at us atten- 
tively, with his whole face breathing short and quick in every 
•feature.'" The sentence is meant to describe a man^s appearance 
when he is under the influence of rage and fear : there is a simi- 
lar passage in ch. xiv. Again: in ch. xxxvi. it is said that 
Mr. Micawber " walked so erect on the strength of this virtuous 
action, that his chest looked half as broad again when he lighted 



64 



Affection and Feeling 



The differ- 
ences be- 
tween sensa- 
tion and 
affection : 



(i) only one 
affection can 
be present at 
any given 
time : 



US downstairs." If Mr. Micawber's arm or leg had been meas- 
uredj his virtuous pleasure would have been found to carry with 
it an actual expansion of that part of him also. Lastly, when 
Miss Mowcher captures the respectable Littimer in ch. Ixi., 
"sheM have took him single-handed if he had been Samson," — 
so strong was she in her righteous indignation. And there is a 
similar remark in ch. vii. 

It is, of course, only through introspection that we are 
able to bring these bodily changes into connection with the 
mental processes of affection. We first observe the connec- 
tion in our own case, and then have the right to argue from 
the same bodily sign to the same mental process in the case 
of others. It will, perhaps, make the task of introspection 
easier if we note now some of the chief differences between 
sensation and affection, as elements of consciousness. 

§ 27. Affection and Sensation. — The best way to 
realise the great difference between sense-experience 
and feel-experience is just to sense and to feel. But 
it will help us to sense and feel observantly if we put 
down in words some of the differences between the 
two kinds of experience. We cannot put them all 
down here ; we have not travelled far enough into 
psychology. There are three of them, however, that 
we are now in a position to understand. 

(i) A sensation is set up by the stimulation of a 
particular organ ; an affection by the tilt given to 
the whole body through that stimulation. Suppose 
now that (as always happens in actual experience) 
two or three sense-organs are stimulated together; 
there will be a gi'oitp of sensations in consciousness 
at the same time. Every stimulus is represented by 
its own special sensation ; the sensations run peace- 
ably side by side. But the body as a whole cannot 
be tilted both up and down at the same time ; either 



§ 27. Ajfection and Sensation 65 

the tilt-up will be the stronger, or the tilt-down, or 
the two will counterbalance each other and there will 
be no tilt. This means that the two opposite affec- 
tions cannot ever be in consciousness together. The 
combination of stimuli which has called out the group 
of sensations will be either pleasant as a whole, or 
unpleasant as a whole, or neither : it cannot possibly 
be both. — In other words : a consciousness may be 
made up of all sorts of sensations, sights and sounds 
and tastes and organic sensations ; but the affection 
of that consciousness is a single affection, a pleasant- 
ness or unpleasantness which spreads over the total 
stream of sense-processes, and makes it as a whole 
pleasant or unpleasant. 

There is a reference to this law in the Pickwick Papers. " A 
good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman," says Mr. Perker 
(ch. xxxiv.), "is a capital thing to get hold of. Discontented 
or hungry jurymen always find for the plaintiff." That is to 
say : if your mood is pleasurable, if you are comfortable and 
experiencing the pleasant feelings of satiety and easy digestion, 
you tend to see everything in a favourable light ; if your mood 
is unpleasurable, and you are uncomfortable and hungry, you are 
likely to take the worst possible view of your fellow-creatures' 
actions. The affection of the moment is spread over the whole 
of consciousness. 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnets^ viii., xcviii. — For a discussion of 
^ mixed feelings,' see § 65. 

(2) We are inclined, until we know better, to think (2) affection 
of sensations as something physical. Many of the ^^^^J^^^^®- 
readers of the previous Chapters were, probably, 
surprised to find that colours and temperatures were 
dealt with by psychology ; they had thought that it 
was the sky that is blue, the air or water that is hot 
or cold. Not till we have fully grasped the differ- 



66 Affection and Feeling 

ence between the physics of light (ether-waves), the 
physiology of light (stimulations and excitations in eye 
and cortex), and the psychology of light (sensations 
of brightness and colour), can we understand that 

* blue ' is a mental process rather than a physical fact. 

But we never think of affections in this way. 
When we talk of * a piece of unpleasant news,' we 
do not think of the unpleasantness as being where 
the news is, in the letter or newspaper; we mean 

* news that makes us uncomfortable,' * a piece of 
unpleasant-to-us news.' When we tell a friend that 
a certain book is * interesting,' we m.ean that it 
pleased us and will please him ; the interest is not 
between the covers of the book, but is aroused in our 
minds by the book. All our feelings are, so to say, 
personal matters, belonging simply and solely to our- 
selves ; we never have any inclination to look at them 
as physical facts, outside of us. 

This difference between sensation and affection is some- 
times expressed by the terms ^ objective ' and ^subjective.' 
Both are mental processes ; but sensation is an objective, 
affection a subjective mental process. Sensations stand for 
outside things and processes ; my sensation of blue means 
the sky, to me ; a sensation of pressure means my book or 
my cup and saucer. Affections have no such reference to 
external objects ; they are purely passive and (in this sense) 
unmeaning processes. Hence they are more personal to 
me than sensations are. — We can, of course, form an idea 
of affection (§ s): otherwise the preceding paragraphs could 
not have been written. And the idea of affection has mean- 
ing ; it means a generally good or a generally bad state of 
my bodily functions. But this is a different matter. 

In popular thinking, the body is conceived of as subjec- 



§ 2/. Affection and Sensation 67 

tive, and only the world outside the body as objective (^cf, 
§93). The sensation of pain, e,g,^ is often identified with 
the affection of unpleasantness. If we wish to see pain and 
the other sensations from the internal bodily organs in their 
true psychological character as sensations, we must look at 
the portion of the body in which they arise as if it were 
something apart from us, like the sky or a chair or a sound. 
In this way we are able to introspect aright ; to split up the 
total feeling, and to rid the organic sensations of the per- 
sonal or subjective flavour of the affective processes. 

(3) If a stimulus is repeated over and over again, (3) affection 
the sensation aroused becomes more and more by repetition, 
organic to our minds, until it grows to be an indis- 
pensable constituent of certain consciousnesses; but 
the affection set up grows weaker and weaker, until 
at last it disappears altogether. The usefulness of 
this difference is clear. We have to live in certain 
surroundings, to work out our lives under certain ex- 
ternal conditions. We must, then, become wholly 
familiar with these surroundings ; we must ' know our 
way about ' them, without having to waste time by 
re-learning them from day to day. In other words, 
the sensations which we get from them must become 
ingrained in our conscious make-up. But it would 
never do for us to be perpetually affected by our sur- 
roundings ; we should be worn out with trifles, and 
unfit for serious work. It is therefore a very useful 
property of the nervous system that it can adapt or 
adjust itself, within certain limits, to its surround- 
ings ; that it can become * set,' as it were, at a cer- 
tain slight tilt, so as to meet the tilt in the other 
direction given it by familiar stimuli. 

Think how vexed you are when you lose some little 
thing ; how sorry you are when you break something ; how 



68 Affection and Feeling 

pleased yoa are when something is given you. But think, 
too, how seriously your hfe would be interfered with if you 
felt the same feeling over again every time that you thought 
of the loss, every time that you thought of the broken cup, 
every time that you saw the gift on your table. Life would 
be a constant seesaw of feeling ; one would never find op- 
portunity to ' settle down ' to anything, and there would be 
no spur to press on towards new enjoyments. 

Think, too, how much time would be wasted if you 
had to find your way about your home and native town 
just as if they were always a strange house and a new 
town. Familiarity has organised the ideas of home and 
town into the structure of your mind ; you take them for 
granted. 

Here, then, is a great difference, and a very useful differ- 
ence, between sensation and affection. It you find that one 
part of a concrete process becomes more serviceable, is (so 
to say) more easily handled, while another part fades out, 
with repetition, you may be sure that the first part is the 
sense-side and the second the feel-side of the process. — Cf. 
Shakespeare, Sonnets, Hi., Ivi. 

We cannot enter here into the question of the bodily con- 
ditions of affection ; we must wait till we have discussed the 
state of attention, to which affection is very closely related. 
Before we go on to deal with attention, however, we must 
notice that some psychologists give a very different account 
of affection from that given above. It is only fair that we 
should see what their account is ; and it will be well to try 
to find out why they differ from us. 

§ 28. Are there More than Two Kinds of Affection? 

—We have recognised two, and only two, kinds or 
qualities of affection : pleasantness and unpleasant- 
ness. This means (to quote Professor Wundt) that 
''the unpleasurableness of a toothache, of an intel- 
lectual failure, and of a tragical experience is iden- 
tical." In so far as they are unpleasant experiences, 



§ 28. More than Two Kinds of Affection ? 69 

the toothache-, failure- and tragedy-consciousnesses 
are the same. 

Professor Wundt looks upon this as " an entirely 
untenable assertion." ^^The variety of simple affec- 
tive qualities," he says, *'is exceedingly great, much 
greater than that of sensations." That is, mind is 
made up not of some 50,000 sensations and two affec- 
tions, — but of some 50,000 sensations and a great 
many more than 50,000 affections. Here is a radical 
difference of opinion ! 

Professor Wundt confesses that we cannot name Wundt's six 
all these affections. But he thinks that we can dis- affective pro- 
tinguish six great groups of elernentary affective ^^^^es. 
processes. These are (i) pleasantness and unpleas- 
antness, (2) strain and relaxation, and (3) excitement 
and depression. Just as there are a large number of 
* smells' and * colours* and * sounds,' so there are a 
large number of different affections under each of 
these six heads. 

Which is the right view ? Nobody can say ; the 
matter must be decided by long-continued and care- 
ful introspection. But, supposing our own view to 
be right, can we say how the other view could have 
arisen } Yes : that question can be answered. The 
other view might easily arise from the confusion of 
feeling and affection, i.e., of specific and elementary 
processes. 

The reader knows what is meant in psychology by an 'Elementary* 

elementary process ; it is a process which cannot be split up and 'specific* 

. ... XX- processes, 

mto simpler processes by mtrospection. Now the specific 

character of a process is different from elementariness, but 

may readily be confused with elementariness. It is what 



70 Affection and Feeling 

makes one concrete process different from another concrete 
process that is composed of the same elements. Thus all 
the emotions (fear, hate, joy, hope) are made up of the 
same material : perceptions and ideas, organic sensations, 
and affection. But no one would ever take a hate for a fear, 
or a hope for a joy ; these emotions are specifically different. 
Again : all ideas are made up of sensations ; but the idea of 
a table and the idea of a desk could not be mistaken for each 
©ther. And again : all feelings are made up (on our view) 
of sensations and affection ; but the feeling of drowsiness is 
specifically different from the feeling of suffocation. 

Suppose, however, that we were to look upon the feelings 
as elementary processes, — to confuse the specific character 
of a concrete process with the elementariness of affection. 
Then we should get Professor Wundt's view : the view that 
there are more affections than there are sensations. For 
every sensation, at every possible degree of intensity, can 
(on our view) enter into a feeling ; though some do this 
more readily than others. Hence if every feeling is taken 
to be an elementary affective process, there must be more 
affections than sensation qualities. 

This is the confusion which Professor Wundt seems to 
have fallen into. The terms ^ strain ' and ^ relaxation ' dis- 
tinctly suggest sensations ; the sensations of tendinous strain, 
and the pressure sensations from skin and muscle (sensa- 
tions of ' heaviness ') that appear in the feelings of drowsi- 
ness, tiredness, etc. And it is not surprising that one should 
fall into it, seeing how closely many sensations (organic sen- 
sations, tastes, smells) blend with affection, and how difficult 
it is to get at the really elementary factors even by the most 
patient introspection. But it is a good rule not to accept 
a process as elementary which holds out any prospect what- 
soever of being compound. Hence while we admit that the 
feelings are specifically different (as different as the ' wish ' 
for an apple and the ^ wish ' for a relief from pain) , we cannot 
regard them as elementary. Pleasantness and unpleasantness 
seem to be the sole affective processes. 



Questions and Exercises 71 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) Cut small squares of coloured paper: say, 7 standard 
colours, 7 shades of these (darker colours), and 7 tints (lighter 
colours). Add to the 21 colours 7 brightnesses: black, white 
and 5 intermediate greys. Sort the squares into pairs; pairing 
every colour and brightness with every other colour and bright- 
ness. Show these pairs, in random order, to the observer, and 
let him say which is the more pleasant of the two impressions. 
At the end of the experiment, make out a full list of the 28 quali- 
ties, arranging them in the order of greater to less pleasantness. 

Notice {a) that the results got from different observers are 
very diiferent. This shows how little accustomed we are to find 
simple colours and brightnesses pleasant or unpleasant. 

(J?) The pleasantness may arise in two ways. It may come 
directly, at sight of the square, from the stimulus itself; or it 
may come indirectly, by ' association,' — the colour ' suggesting ' 
something of that colour (a blue gown, a red house, a yellow 
necktie, etc.) which has played a part, pleasant or unpleasant, in 
the observer's experience. 

What you are trying to find here is the direct value of the 
different stimuli in calling up an affective process. You must 
therefore rule out association, as far as you can. As the ob- 
server gets practised in the experiments, the associations will 
become fewer and fewer. 

(2) Seat the observer before a table. Drive a nail partly into 
the wood, at his right hand. Measure off 25 cm. along the table's 
edge, from this nail towards the observer's right. Lay a book at 
the 25 cm. mark. Now {a) let the observer move his finger slowly 
along the table, from the nail to the book. Then (J?) remove 
the book, and let him try to make the same movement, stopping 
when he thinks he has reached the point at which the book lay. 
Do this a number of times, and take the average of the second 
movements. 

Repeat the series, with this difference : before the observer 
makes the second movement in each experiment (the movement 
when the book is removed) let him smell a pleasant or unpleas- 
ant odour. Notice how his average movement is lengthened or 
shortened under the influence of pleasantness and unpleasantness. 

(3) If you possess a hand-dynamometer (Fig. 9), take with it 
{a) the strongest squeeze that the subject can make under ordi- 




72 Affection and Feeling 

nary circumstances ; {b) the strongest that he can make while tast- 
ing a very bitter substance ; and (<:) the strongest that he can 

make while tasting a pleasantly 
sweet substance. 

(4) Analyse by introspec- 
tion the feelings of smart (a 
^smarting pain'), of health (^I 
feel first-rate'), of hunger and 
of oppressive heat. 
^^^* 9 (5) Write out a list of all 

the ^feelings' you can think of, — that is, of all the phrases be- 
ginning with " I feel " or " I have a feeling of. " Find by intro- 
spection how many of them really contain the element of affection, 
and how many are merely sensations or perceptions. 

(6) Give in your own words the distinction between elemen- 
tariness and specific difference. Try to find instances of it in 
some other science, — e.g.^ in chemistry. 

(7) Give instances, from your personal experience or from 
novels, of the three differences between affection and sensation 
mentioned in § 27. 

(8) We may receive much pleasure from the sight of an ex- 
panse of blue water, of the starry sky, etc., or from the sound of a 
friend's voice. Can you reconcile this fact with the statements 
of § 25 ? 

(9) All the bodily changes mentioned in § 26 reduce to a 
single type when strictly analysed. What is the type? 

References 

Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., pp. 64-66; vol. II., pp. 1-56. 
Titchener, Outline^ §§ 31-34, 56. 
Wundt, Lectures^ Lect. XIV. 
Wundt, Outlines^ § 7. 



CHAPTER V 

Attention 

§ 29. The Problem of Attention. — We have defined 
mind as the sum of all those mental processes that 
make up the experience of a single lifetime. And 
we have seen that mental processes, when introspec- 
tively scrutinised and dissected, can be reduced to two 
kinds of quite simple processes or mental elements, 
sensation and affection. Every consciousness can be 
split up into certain groups of sensations and a cer- 
tain affection. 

If, now, these processes always remained unchanged, States of con- 
if the stream flowed always at the same level, the 
task of the psychologist would be easy. He would 
take the consciousness which he wished to examine, 
and pull it to pieces by introspection ; then he would 
state the laws which had led to the grouping of the 
elementary processes into that consciousness ; and 
then he would describe the bodily processes corre- 
sponding to the mental processes which he had found. 
But (as we saw in § 8) the processes do not remain 
unchanged. The stream of consciousness is sometimes 
a mere trickle, sometimes a placid river, sometimes a 
torrent : or, in technical language, there are many dif- 
ferent states of consciousness. The mental processes 
may remain the same processes, as we pass from one 
state of consciousness to another ; but their state — 
their relative prominence or importance — is changed. 

73 



74 



Attention 



attention 
and inatten- 
tion. 



The two 
sides of 
attention. 



The states of consciousness that are most famihar 
to us in the waking Hfe are those of attention and 
inattention. The value of attention need hardly be 
pointed out ; every teacher and every learner admits 
it. The reader may, however, be reminded that the 
rule ** Be attentive " occurs in our list of the general 
rules of experimental introspection (§ 15). It will be 
well, then, now that we have discussed the element- 
ary mental processes, to look at attention^ and see 
how these processes behave in the attentive and inat- 
tentive states, before we pass on to treat of the laws 
which govern their union in perceptions and ideas 
and emotions. 

Attention, like the tree in Mark Twain's story, has 
two sides, an inside and an outside. Looked at from 
the inside, attention consists of a certain well-marked 
phase or aspect of the stream of consciousness : our 
mental processes when we are attentive are in a 
different state from our mental processes when we 
are not attending. Looked at from the outside, 
attention consists of a certain attitude of the body, 
and especially of the head. The problem that atten- 
tion sets us is, therefore, twofold : we must describe 
and explain the state of consciousness, and we must 
describe and explain the bodily attitude. 

We shall see later (§ 34) that even this outside is in a 
sense an inside ; that it has a distinct psychological value. 
The bodily attitude is in many cases accompanied by inten- 
sive and characteristic sensations. 

§ 30. Attention as a State of Consciousness. — We 
have here to ask what attention is, as a psycho- 
logical fact, — how the state of attention differs. 



§ 30- Attention as a State of Consciousness 75 

when introspectively examined, from the state of 
inattention. 

When we are inattentive, — when we are in a Attention to 
reverie, letting our thoughts wander, — the stream of ^^^^^ 
conscious processes is flowing, so to speak, at the 
same level. Every idea that occurs to us is as im- 
portant as, but not more important than, the ideas 
already present. There is no difference in the height 
of the waves, as the stream of consciousness flows on. 

When we are attentive, on the other hand, the 
stream flows at two distinct levels. The one is the 
level of the ideas attended to; the other that of 
the ideas attended from. For we cannot attend at 
the same moment to all the ideas that make up a 
consciousness ; the * grasp ' of attention is limited, — 
so that some ideas must suffer for the benefit of the 
rest. The ideas attended to are assisted in their 
course : their waves run at a great height above the 
average level of the stream. The other ideas in con- 
sciousness, those attended from, are checked : their 
waves run sluggishly below the average level. 

In Fig. 10, a represents an inat- a 

tentive, and b an attentive conscious- 
ness. The dark line is the bed of 
the stream, and the current is sup- 
posed to be flowing towards you, out 
of the paper. In a there are five 
ideas present, all proceeding at equal 
levels. In b the third idea is being 
attended to ; its wave is much height- 
ened, while the waves of i, 2, 4 and 5, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
the ideas attended from, are depressed. ^^^' ^^ 

The heightening of the wave which represents the The charac- 

. -J ter of ideas 

idea attended to means three things. (i)This idea attended /(?. 




76 



Attention 



Attention 
may be 



passive, 



active, 



becomes clearer in consciousness than the other ideas 
of the time ; it stands out definitely and distinctly, 
while the ideas attended from are blurred and ob- 
scure. (2) It lasts longer than the other ideas. They 
slip away, but it is ' held ' or arrested. (3) It is more 
valuable than the others. For it is more * suggestive ' 
than they are, — it brings to mind a number of other 
ideas; and it is also more likely to be remembered 
than they are, so that it will be at our disposal on 
future occasions when they have altogether disap- 
peared from memory. 

You can easily verify these three points by intro- 
spection. 

§ 31. The Three Forms of Attention. — If we look at 
attention in the adult mind, we find that it appears in 
three different stages or strata ; and each of these 
represents a stage in the development of mind at 
large, in mental evolution. These stages have been 
named passive attention, active attention and second- 
ary passive attention. We must look at them in order. 

(i) Passive Attention. — There are some things that 
we must attend to, whether we will or no ; things that 
irresistibly attract us to them, whatever our occupa- 
tion at the time may be. Such are loud sounds and 
brilliant lights ; things that move amidst unmoved sur- 
roundings ; things that for some reason contrast with 
their surroundings. When an object of this kind is 
presented to us, we necessarily attend to it ; its idea 
is borne up in consciousness on the crest of the atten- 
tion wave, and we are deaf and blind to other stimuli. 

(2) Active Attention. — Sometimes, on the other 
hand, we seem to be holding our mind upon an 



tion. 



§ 31. The Three Forms of Attention TJ 

object by main force, to be making ourselves attend. 
The ideas attended to in these cases are not such as 
would ^naturally' become the prominent ideas in con- 
sciousness : indeed, they may be ideas which would 
naturally escape notice. Thus we may listen in- 
tently to a very faint sound, a sound that under 
ordinary circumstances would have had no power 
whatsoever to attract the attention ; or we may note 
the minute differences between two shells or two 
plants, finding distinctions where the ordinary unin- 
terested observer would find nothing but similarity. 
This active attention always involves effort. 

(3) Secondary Passive Attention. — Active attention, or secondary 

1 . , . .-r^i r passive atten- 

however, may pass over mto passive, ihe man 01 
science who is comparing the shells or plants may 
become so absorbed in his work that he forgets his 
dinner or misses an appointment; his mind is held 
as firmly by his work as it could be by a loud sound 
or a movement. In such a case, an object which 
has no right of its own to engross consciousness has 
gained this right in course of time and practice. At 
first attended to actively, with an effort, and barely 
able to hold its own against distracting ideas, it now 
absorbs the full measure of attention ; the student 
is buried or sunk in his task. 

The attention of young children and of the lower animals 
is almost exclusively of the passive sort. Older children 
and the higher animals are capable of active attention. Sec- 
ondary passive attention is peculiar to man and to the ani- 
mals trained by man (dogs, performing animals). Man 
alone is able to make full use of it. We must now ask 
what that use is, and what is the significance of the three 
stages of attention in our mental life. 



1^ 



Attention 



Individuals 
differ 



in bodily 
tendency 



or mental 
constitution. 



§ 32. Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution. — 

Every child is born with certain aptitudes. Its mind 
will not be an all-round mind, but a mind better suited 
to some one career, some particular employment, than 
to others. The reason is that every child is the out- 
come of different conditions. The children of differ- 
ent families come of different stocks, so that their 
inherited tendencies or leanings are different; and 
even brothers and sisters have different natural en- 
dowraents, according as they * take after ' this or that 
parent or grandparent, and are brought up under 
different circumstances. 

Biologically regarded, these differences are differ- 
ences of tendency. The nervous system of each one 
of us is the product of a long course of development, 
during which all sorts of influences have been at 
work to shape and mould it. It is set for acting in 
a certain way, and cannot act satisfactorily in other 
ways. Psychologically regarded, the differences are 
differences of mental constitution. Each man's mind 
is differently constituted from his neighbour's, be- 
cause its processes run their course within the chan- 
nels laid down by a particular nervous system. With 
certain nervous tendencies we have a ' mathematical 
mind ' ; with certain others, an * emotional mind ' ; 
with certain others, a ' plodding mind ' ; etc. 



How we 
know this. 



The fact that minds differ in general trend or character 
is brought home to us in three ways, (i) If we. compare 
the results gained by introspection of different minds, we 
find curious individual differences. One man remembers 
an event by seeing it over again ; another by hearing it over 
again. That is, the one is eye-minded, the other ear- 



§ 32. Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution 79 

minded. It is the same event ; but it has appealed to the 
two minds differently, because of the differences of nervous 
tendency. The minds are differently constituted. (2) AVe 
are sorted out into groups as children ; we are told that we 
are ' bright ' or ' dull/ ' industrious ' or ' impatient/ etc. So 
it is natural to us to think of minds as being of different 
types or kinds. (3) We see that different people act dif- 
ferently under the same circumstances. One man is con- 
fused and hesitant, another stunned and helpless, another 
ready and capable, while the external conditions remain 
precisely the same. 

We have said that nervous tendency and the mental constitu- The problem 
tion that corresponds to it are the result of influences which have °^ education, 
been at work throughout a long course of development, — of the 
influences that affected parents and grandparents and more re- 
mote ancestors. That our surroundings can and do exert a pro- 
found influence on us is a fact, however, that each of us can 
observe in his own lifetime. The child's nervous system, though 
set in a certain way, can yet be moulded to a very considerable 
extent ; the habit imposed by education becomes second nature. 
This, indeed, is the chief problem of education. In psychologi- 
cal language, the teacher must find out the child's 7tatural mental 
constitution, noticing the good and bad features of it, and must 
seek by influence of all kinds to accentuate the good and mini- 
mise the bad. In biological language, he must find out the 
child's natural nervous tendencies, and strive — by favouring 
the formation of good habits — to keep the right channels open 
for the flow of mental processes and dam up those that lead 
mind astray. Natural constitution and natural tendency must 
be partly reinforced and partly checked by acquired constitution 
and acquired tendency. 

The existence of nervous tendency is the key to , Bodily ten- 
the three forms of attention. (i)The natural con- account for 
ditions of life are so far alike that every animal must *^® ^°^"^^ °^ 

attention; 

have certain tendencies, if it is to live at all. An 
animal that neglected loud sounds, that did not passive, 
notice movement in its neighbourhood or change in 



8o 



Attention 



Active, 



and second- 
ary passive 
attention. 



its customary surroundings, would soon fall a prey to 
its enemies. Hence passive attention to these things 
is ingrained in our physical structure ; a mind so con- 
stituted as not to attend to them is an impossibility, 
the conditions of life and evolution being what they 
are. (2) But the list of things that we must attend to 
is not very long. And things not in the list cannot, 
of course, attract the attention so forcibly, cannot 
demand it so imperatively, as the others can. Hence 
attention to them is active attention : attention under 
difficulties, attention with several claimants upon 
consciousness. The strongest idea wins, i,e,^ the idea 
that takes most easily the direction of our nervous ten- 
dencies ; but it wins only after a struggle with other 
ideas, which follow the lines laid down by weaker 
rival tendencies. The nervous system is so com- 
plicated that it may be the scene of many conflicting 
tendencies at the same moment. (3) At this stage 
the development of the animal mind ceases. The 
animal (unless dominated by man, formed by human 
training) must go through the same struggle, make 
the same effort, every time that it is attentive. 
But man is superior to the animals in that he has 
a conscious tradition, a history : he has records of 
the past, in the light of which he can look forward 
to the future. Hence man is able to *take sides* 
with the ideas that are striving for the first place in 
consciousness; he can help one idea, and hinder 
others. Partly we do this for ourselves, thinking 
that " this work is a great nuisance now, but will be 
worth while in the long run " ; partly, and more 
especially, it is done for us by parents and teachers, 



§ 33- Attention and Affection 8i 

whether we consent or not, while we are children. 
The child is trained, in the light of the past experi- 
ence of the human race ; the young of animals have 
no such training. So we get, in man, the state of 
secondary passive attention. A task at first per- 
formed against our will, with pains and difficulty, 
becomes easy and natural. 

Secondary passive attention is the chief condition of The condi- 
human progress. The more a piece of work is reduced to a !^°"f, , 

^ ° ^ intellectual 

matter of course, the more power has the mind to advance progress. 
to further work. This becomes natural and easy in its turn, 
and gives place to new work ; and so on. And secondary 
passive attention is possible because the teacher, guided by 
past experience, can lay his finger upon a useful tendency, 
a useful feature of mental constitution, in the child, and aid 
it by insisting on the formation of habits in accordance with 
it. Active attention thus appears as a stage of waste, a 
stage to be got out of. At the same time, it is a stage that 
must be passed through, and passed through again and 
again, if knowledge is to grow and character to be rightly 
moulded. The child who did not pass through it would 
remain at the level of the animals, the sport and play of 
any great or striking or novel occurrence in its surround- 
ings. Active attention is the battle which must be won by 
those who mean to master their surroundings and rise to 
man's full height above the animal world. 

§ 33. Attention and Affection. — If the reader had 
been asked, before he opened this book, why he 
attended to certain things, he would probably have ^ 
replied, ** Because they interest me." If he were 
asked now, after having read the previous Section, 
he would probably say, ^' Because they are the things 
that follow the lines of my nervous tendencies, or fit in 
with my mental constitution." Both answers are cor- 

G 



82 Attention 

rect, though they are given from different points of 
view. 
Interest. What is a thing that ' interests ' us ? It is a thing 

the idea of which is overlaid with affection. The 
affection may be pleasantness or unpleasantness. 
We are interested in what we like, in what pleases 
us ; and we are interested in what we dislike, in what 
displeases or threatens us, — we are * fascinated ' by 
accounts of crimes and disasters. It is quite true 
to say that the interesting thing is the thing that 
attracts the attention ; just as it is quite true to say 
that the thing which fits in with our mental constitu- 
tion is the thing that attracts the attention. 
Attention But here we must be on our guard against a com- 

and affection ^^^ error. We are apt to think that we attend to 

back ana ^ 

front of the a thing after we have found it interesting: that the 

same state. . _■ 

pleasure or disgust comes first, and the attention fol- 
lows, drawn to the thing by its interestingness. That 
is not true. Affection and attention come together 
in consciousness ; they are back and front, obverse 
and reverse, of the same state. It is only when we 
are feeling that we are attending ; only when we are 
attending that we are feeling. We do not first feel, 
and then attend ; we feel and attend together. 

Now, then, we can see in what sense the two 
answers to our question are correct. A thing which 
follows the lines of our nervous tendencies is a thing- 
to-be-attended-to ; at the same time, it is a thing-to-be- 
felt. But a felt thing is an interesting thing. Hence 
the thing that we attend to is from one point of view 
a thing that follows the lines of our tendencies, and 
from another point of view a thing that interests us. 



attention and 
affection. 



§ 33. Attention and Affection 83 

The notion that we attend after we have felt interested is Two intro- 
so wide-spread, and seems so natural, that the reader may rereinblances 
find it hard to adopt the true view, and to think of affection between 
and attention as two sides of the same mental experience. 
Let us see, then, what introspection has to say of their 
resemblance. If it turns out that they have certain essen- 
tial characteristics in common, it will be easier to believe 
that, when the one appears, the other appears with it. 

(i) We saw in § 27 (i) that affection spreads over the 
whole of consciousness, thus differing from sensations, many 
of which may run their course side by side at a given time. 
Attention, in the same way, is a state of the whole con- 
sciousness. All the ideas present are influenced by it, by 
way of exaltation or depression, — some attended to, some 
attended from. 

(2) When we attend to a sensation, we make it clearer, 
more lasting, etc. We cannot attend to an affection. If we 
try to do so, we drive the affection away ; the pleasantness or 
unpleasantness disappears, and we find ourselves looking at 
some obtrusive sensation or idea which we had no intention 
of observing. The reason is clear : attention and affection 
are not separate matters, but two sides of one experience, 
and it is as impossible to attend to affection as it would be 
to see the ' head ' side of a coin by looking at the ^ tail' side. 
— Note that here is a fourth difference between sensation 
and affection (§ 27; and cf, § 12). 

A good illustration of the fact that it is impossible to attend 
to an affection is given in a paragraph of Mrs. F. H. Burnett's 
reminiscences. Speaking of her child-life, Mrs. Burnett says : 

" ^ Is this really the party ? ' she [the little girl] would say 
mentally. And then, to convince herself, to make it real, ' Yes, 
it is the Party, I am at the Party. I have my party frock on — 
they are all dancing. This is the Party.' And yet as she stood 
and stared, and the gay sashes floated by, she was restlessly con- 
scious of not being quite convinced and satisfied, and of some- 
thing which was saying, ^ Yes — we are all here. It looks real, 
but somehow it doesn't seem exactly as if it was the Party,'* 



84 Attention 

And one does it all one's life. Everybody dances, everybody 
hears the musicj — but was there ever anyone who really went to 
the Party ? " 

That is to say : we cannot feel if we try to introspect our 
pleasure. Attend to the music and the sashes, and you will 
enjoy yourself; attend to your enjoyment, and it vanishes. 

The ' out- § 34. The Bodily Attitude in Attention. — We now 

attention ^^^^ to the ' outside ' of the attentive state, the bodily 
attitude which we take up when we are attending. 
This may be briefly described as the attitude which 
secures the most favourable conditions for the use 
of the sense-organ to which the object of attention 
appeals. There is a brace or tension of the whole 
body ; the muscles are all ' under control.' The head 
is set firmly on the shoulders, fronting straight for- 
ward if the object is a sight, thrust out onesidedly if 
it is a sound. Breathing is kept as steady as possible 
in the former case, so that the thing looked at may 
not be obscured by up and down movements of the 
head, and as noiseless as possible in the second, so 
that the sound may not be interfered with by the 
noises of respiration. If we are listening, too, the 
eyes are often closed, so that our attention may not 
be distracted by striking or moving objects in the 
field of vision. 

In the case of passive and secondary passive at- 
tention, we 'fall into' this attitude naturally. Our 
nervous systems have been drilled, whether by the 
accumulated experiences of the race or in the course 
of our early education, and we adjust ourselves to the 
circumstances without difficulty or hesitation. In the 
case of active attention, where there are two or three 
ideas (each of them with its own bodily attitude) 



§ 35- Apperception 85 

clamouring to be attended to at the same time, there 
is a conflict of attitudes as there is of ideas ; the ad- 
justment takes place slowly, and is completed only- 
after many checks and hindrances. 

It is plain that when a bodily attitude is assumed and its effect 

upon the 

in this way, slowly and laboriously, a large number 'inside.* 
of sensations will be set up in skin and muscle, joint 
and tendon. These sensations are aroused, as a 
matter of fact, in active attention. Blended together, 
they make up the experience of effort which always Effort, 
accompanies this form of attention. A conscious- 
ness in the state of active attention thus differs from 
consciousnesses in the state of passive and secondary 
passive attention in that a new concrete process, the 
experience of effort, is introduced into it, over and 
above the exaltation and depression of ideas already 
present. 

That the bodily attitude of attention ^ will out,' even under 
circumstances when it would be well that it should not, is seen 
from the following passage in Fenimore Cooper's Last of the 
Mohicans : 

" But Heyward saw that while to a less instructed eye the 
Mohican chief appeared to slumber, his nostrils were expanded,^ 
his head was tiir^ied a little to ojie side^ as if to assist the organs 
of hearing, and that his quick and rapid glances ran incessantly 
over every object within the power of his vision" (ch. xix.). 

§ 35. Apperception. — Our nervous tendencies, in- 
herited and acquired, decide what we shall attend to, 
or (in other words) decide when we shall feel. Each 
man picks out a world of his own from the great 
world around him, and is affected by the events of 
this private world ; and the nature of the little world 
in which he lives his individual life is determined by 



perception 



86 Attention 

his mental constitution. Let us see what this means 
in a particular instance. 
Selective Suppose that you are opening a new number of 

a magazine, or the daily paper. As you do so, your 
eye is ' caught ' by some word in the column before 
you : say, by the word grapnel. Every one who 
reads much has probably had this experience of the 
' catching ' of the eye by some word on the newly 
turned page. As a rule, however, we go on to our 
reading, and do not think anything about the matter. 
Yet it is, to the psychologist, a matter of great 
interest, as a very little consideration will show. 

(i) Our eye has been caught by the word grapnel. 
Turning to the place where we saw it, we may find 
that the word is really there. The paragraph tells 
of a shipwreck or some other nautical event, and 
the term ' grapnel ' is used by the writer. In this 
case we have seen the letters just as they are 
printed. 

Even here, however, our tendencies have been at 
work. For the word * grapnel ' is not printed more 
clearly, in blacker ink or larger letters, than the 
other words of the paragraph. We should not have 
seen it, and failed to see them, unless we had been 
biassed, unless the idea of ' grapnel ' had somehow 
fitted in with our mental constitution. 

(2) But the word need not be there. Looking 
carefully down the column we may find nothing 
nearer to * grapnel ' than the word grape : the para- 
graph is discussing the grape harvest. Then we 
say : '* I must have seen * grape ' and thought of 
* grapnel,' because I was so interested last night 



§ 35- Apperception 8y 

(or last week or last month) in that article on 
anchors. I had anchors in my mind, though I didn't 
know it when I opened the paper." 

(3) But, again, the word 'grape' need not be 
there. There may be no word in the whole para- 
graph that is at all like * grapnel ' ; no word beginning 
with gr. Then we should say : '* That's curious ! 
I must have been so full of the anchor article that I 
saw * grapnel' in my imagination and supposed I saw 
it on the paper. I shall be more careful next time." 

(4) And lastly : not only may there be no word 
like ' grapnel ' in the column, but there may have been 
no article on anchors read lately. Rack our memory 
as we will, we may be wholly unable to find any 
reason for our having seen that particular word. 
Then we should say: *' That's very curious! Of 
course, I have always been interested in ships ; but 
why I should have seen 'grapnel' just now, when I 
wasn't thinking of ships or anything to do with 
them, passes my comprehension." 

The psychologist will offer a similar explanation and its 
of these three facts. In (2) and (3), he will say, the ^^p^"^*^°"- 
reading of the article on anchors had thrown open 
certain channels of tendency, the tendency that makes 
you 'interested in ships.' So you read what is before 
you not as it really is, but as you see it with your 
mind turned into these channels (^. §§ 10, 12). You 
were biassed or prejudiced before you opened the 
paper. As for the last case, the ship-tendencies 
were so strong there that no opening of flood-gates 
was needed. Your mind is set so strongly in one 
direction that you are likely to see everything through 



88 Attention 

shipping-spectacles. You do not realise that you are 
biassed : it seems ' natural ' to you that ships should 
be interesting. But it is just because the love of 
ships is ingrained in your nervous system that your 
perception in this case is a perception of some- 
thing which is not there, — that you have interpreted 
a certain arrangement of black marks which do not 
read ' grapnel ' as if they spelled that word. 
Appercep- All these four cases are cases of what is called 

^^°"' apperception. An apperception is a perception whose 

character is determined, wholly or chiefly, by the pe- 
culiar tendencies of a nervous system, rather than by 
the nature of the thing perceived. Sometimes, as in 
cases (2) and (3), you can tell by introspection how the 
channels of tendency have been opened up (by the 
reading of the article on anchors) ; sometimes, how- 
ever, the tendencies are so strong in themselves, and 
date so far back beyond the limits of your memory, 
that, while you see their effects (the alteration of per- 
ception), you cannot tell what it is that takes your 
mind in their direction on any particular occasion. 
And again : while sometimes the tendencies assist per- 
ception, as in case (i), at other times they may lead 
you badly astray in your interpretation of the outside 
world, as in the three femaining instances. 

§ 36. The Working of Attention. — The experimental 
study of attention has given us valuable knowledge 
as to the way in which the mind works in the atten- 
tive state. Two points may be mentioned here. 
The duration (i) We Cannot attend to the same thing for any 
length of time together. The attention-wave rises 



§ 36. The Working of Attention 89 

and falls at short intervals : attention fluctuates. 
The longest stretch of attention recorded is a 
stretch of 24 sec, and the average length of 
attention is no more than 5 or 6 sees. Often- 
times, of course, we seem to be steadily attending 
for a long period to some one thing (as when we are 
reading a book, or listening to music) ; but in reality 
the topic is continually changing, and the drops and 
spurts of attention are not noticed as we pass from 
idea to idea, or from phrase to phrase. 

A favourite amusement at country fairs is that of shooting at 
an egg-shell which dances up and down upon a jet of water. 
The pressure of the water is variable, so that you never know 
when the ^gg will drop and when it will spring up. — You may 
think of the attention-wave in Fig. 10 as a jet of this kind, and 
of the idea attended to as the egg-shell. Every half-dozen sec- 
onds the jet spurts up, and the idea becomes clear ; but the spurt 
is followed by a drop, in which the idea falls into obscurity again. 

(2) We cannot attend to many things at once. If The range 
a page of 'printer's pie,' a page of letters mixed at °^^"^"^^^^' 
haphazard, is shown to us for a second or two, we 
can read only 4 or 5 letters in a single flash of atten- 
tion. The top of the attention-wave cannot carry 
more than 4 or 5 simple perceptions at the same 
time. But — and this is the important thing — we 
can read 4 or 5 familiar short words as easily as we 
can read the 4 or 5 separate letters. This shows 
that our reading of short words is done by general 
impression, by a grasp of the look of the whole 
word rather than by any method of spelling-out the 
letters. 

It would be impossible for us to read as quickly as we do 
if we read by letters. If I am reading a work on the fauna 



90 Attention 

of Australia, and the word ornithorhyncus occurs, I probably 
see the first two or three letters distinctly, then have a vague 
impression of a long line of high and low letters, and then 
catch the final cus as my eye moves towards the right-hand 
side of the page. With my Australia-tendencies at work, 
this is fully enough to give me the meaning of the whole 
word ornithorhyncus. 

Again : if we read by letters, we should not be so apt as 
we are to overlook misprints in books. As we read so 
largely by general impression, a wrong letter here or there 
does not matter, — does not attract the attention. 



§ 37. The Physiological Conditions of Attention. — 

To understand the physiological conditions of atten- 
tion, we must understand the general plan upon 
which the nervous system is built. 
Thestructu- Think of the nerves which run from the sense- 

ral plan of the . .1 1 • 1 r -y ^' 

nervous sys- organs to the bram as a number or railway-imes. 

tern These lines converge at first in the lower brain- 

centres, the grey masses within the brain (/^, 752). 
Running farther, they converge again in the various 
sense-centres of the brain cortex. Running still 
farther, they end in intermediate areas, termed the 
* association centres of Flechsig.' From all three sets 
of stations other lines run out, either directly or indi- 
rectly (i.e.^ by way of lower centres) to the muscles. 

and its The use of the centres of the first class we shall 

meaning for 

attention. discuss later (§§ 72, 106). We are concerned now 
with the sense-centres and association-centres. At- 
tention to an idea probably means, on the physiologi- 
cal side, that the lines running to and from the area 
within which that idea is excited and the other areas 
(' sense ' and ' association ') functionally connected 



Questions and Exercises 91 

with it are open, whereas the hnes of intercommuni- 
cation throughout the rest of the cortex are more or 
less effectually blocked. 

The cortex as a whole represents a certain limited amount 
of energy. When, therefore, the currents of excitation are 
determined to a particular area, the enhanced activity of 
this area drains the rest of the cortex of its energy, on the 
same principle that the lights in an electric car grow dim 
when the car starts. 

It should, perhaps, be said that some authors regard the 
frontal lobes of the brain as a supreme regulative centre, whose 
activity is essential for the formation of an attentive conscious- 
ness. But the researches of P. Flechsig (professor of psychiatry 
in the University of Leipsic) seem to make this position untena- 
ble (see Quest. 11, p. 23). 

When a cell has exploded, it must take time to 
recover ; it cannot explode again till it has been re- 
charged. That is why attention is interrupted, why 
we can attend only for a few seconds at a time. The 
spurts of the attention-wave correspond to the succes- 
sive discharges of cortical cells. 

The bodily conditions of affection (p. 68) are to be 
looked for in the state of nutrition of the excited cor- 
tical areas. If these are well-nourished, irrigated by 
abundant fresh blood, the thing attended to is pleas- 
ant ; if they are ill-nourished, it is unpleasant. 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) Give a list of the things which in your own experience 
appeal to the passive attention, and of the things which always 
require an effort if they are to be attended to. Can you draw 
from your experience any instance of secondary passive atten- 
tion ? If so, trace its development from active attention. 

(2) Write out all the words you can think of which are de- 
scriptive of mental constitution. 

(3) What incidents can you remember, in history or in fic- 
tion, which bring out differences of mental constitution? 



92 Attention 

(4) Describe carefully the bodily attitude (a) of the scout 
(visual attention) and {b) of the eavesdropper (auditory atten- 
tion). What sensations are set up by the two attitudes? What 
is the reason for the difference between the two? 

(5) Prove the fact that the attention is interrupted, not con- 
tinuous, in this Vvay. Seat the subject blindfold in a chair, so 
that he sits sidewise to the length of the room. Hold a watch at 
the level of his ear, and remove it until its ticking is only just 
audible. As he listens, the sound will alternately disappear and 
reappear : disappear as the attention-wave falls, and reappear as 
it rises again. Let him lift his finger at each disappearance. 
Count off on the watch the number of seconds between disap- 
pearance and disappearance. 

(6) Draw, on a large scale, an outline map of the nervous sys- 
tem, showing the ingoing and outgoing nerves, and the three sets 
of stations. Mark the two kinds of nerves in different-coloured 
inks. With the sketch in your hand, and without looking at the 
book, tell what happens in the nervous system (^a) when we are 
attending to a pleasant sight, and {U) when we are attending to 
an unpleasant sound. 

(7) If unpleasant feelings are bad for us, why should we be 
attracted by unpleasant topics? Why should we be ^ fascinated' 
by accounts of brutal murders and distressing accidents ? 

(8) If a child has fallen and hurt itself, and you can distract 
its attention from the pain, it stops crying. Why is this? 

(9) To test the range of attention, /.^., to find out how many 
objects can be attended to at once, you must have a simple appa- 
ratus constructed. . Fasten two stout uprights, 4 ft. high, upon a 
base. The inner surfaces of the uprights must be grooved, so 
that a board i ft. wide will slide down easily between them. The 
uprights may be braced together behind. Make the sliding 
board 3 ft. long. At its centre cut out a lo-inch square. It is 
well to paint board and uprights black. Six inches from one end 
of the board, and directly in the middle, tack a round piece of 
white card, of i in. diameter. 

Cut pieces of stout cardboard i ft. square. Over 10 square 
inches of the cards paste {a) large black letters in haphazard 
order, and {p) sets of short words. Four words of four letters 
should fill the 10 inches. For each experiment pin one of these 
cards to the back of the uprights, with its upper edge just i ft. 
below their top. 

Raise the sliding board, so that its bottom is level with the 
bottom of the card attached to the uprights. The card is now 



Questions and Exercises 93 

covered by the board ; and the round white mark on the board 
lies over the centre of the group of words or letters. Tell your 
audience to look at this mark: and drop the board. The 10- 
inch opening falls over the lo-inch group of letters, letting them 
be seen for a moment ; and the board comes to rest with its upper 
portion covering the card again. To prevent noise, lay a strip of 
felt between the feet of the uprights. And if the onlookers have 
(as will probably be the case) followed the falling mark with 
their eyes, instead of looking steadily at the place that it fell from, 
repeat the experiment with the same card. Let each member of 
the audience write down what letters or words he sees as the 
board drops. 

By driving a wire-nail through one of the braces of the uprights 
and letting the point penetrate the back of the sliding board you 
can hold the latter in position till the audience is ready for an 
experiment. Then release it by withdrawing the nail. 

(10) It is said above that a performing animal (a trained dog 
or monkey) gives evidence of secondary passive attention. 
Explain this. 

(11) Why is it that the hidden drawing in a ^puzzle picture' 
is so difficult to see at first, and so difficult not to see when you 
have once found it. 

(12) Can you give any reason, besides that mentioned in § 12, 
for the occurrence of blanks in your introspection of the idea of 
the chair (§ 4) ? 

(13) ^'It is only when we are feeling that we are attending; 
only when we are attending that we are feeling" (p. 82). Yet 
when we are attending strenuously, — engaged upon a difficult 
problem, standing ready to return the service of an unknown 
opponent at tennis, — feeling is by no means prominent in con- 
sciousness. Can you explain this seeming discrepancy? 

(14) Make a careful analysis of the experience of effort. 
What sensations do you find, over and above those mentioned 
on p. 85? 

References 

James, Textbook, ch. xiii. (Perform the experiments indicated 

in Figs. 54-56.) 
Sully, Human Mind, vol. I., pp. 74-79, ^h. vi. 
Titchener, Outline, §§ 35-42. 
Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XVI., XVII. 
Wundt, Outlines^ § 15. 



CHAPTER VI 



Perception 



How sensa- 
tions are put 
together. 



§ 38. The Formation of Perceptions and Ideas. — 

Most people, if asked what were the simplest bits of 
mental experience, of mind, that they could name 
would say: ''Perceptions, and feelings, and ideas." 
They would look upon sensations, if they thought of 
them at all, as physical processes (§ 27), and they 
would not dream of separating affection from the 
perceptions and ideas that it accompanies. 

We saw in § 28 how easily the feelings might be taken for 
simple, elementary processes. It is natural that the same mistake 
should be made in the case of perceptions and ideas : for these^ 
with the feelings, are the -simplest processes that occur in real 
life, in everyday mental experience. Recalling the terms used 
in § 8 we may say that they are the simplest concrete processes 
in mind, — the simplest that we can find by ordinary observa- 
tion, without employing the scientific method of introspection. 

Feeling we have already discussed (§ 25). And 
we have more than once referred to perceptions and 
ideas as * groups of sensations.' How, now, are 
these concrete processes formed } How is it that 
certain sensations get welded or blended together 
so closely that the whole looks, at first sight, like 
one simple process } 

If we make our question more definite, it will fur- 
nish its own answer. Why does my idea of Lake 
Cayuga include sensations of blue and cold, and not 
sensations of sour and strain ? The reason is clear. 

94 



§ 39- Difference between Perception and Idea 95 

Sensations hold together in consciousness when the 
stimuH, the things or processes in the outside world 
that give rise to them, occur together. Natural 
objects appeal to the mind, in each of their aspects, 
through some particular sense-organ: every object, 
as a whole, appealing to several sense-organs. The 
sensations hold together, then, just as the different 
aspects of the natural object hold together. The 
perception or idea stands for, represents, mea^is 
some material thing or process ; and the sensations 
that compose it can no more fall apart than the blue- 
ness of the water can be separated in my experience 
from its coolness. 

Sensations are welded together, therefore, under the influ- The bidding 
ence or at the bidding of our physical surroundings. A per- <^^^^^^r^- 
ception or idea always means something, stands for some 
object. Mind is developed in close interaction with nature ; 
and what nature binds together remains together in percep- 
tion and idea. 



§ 39. The Difference between Perception and Idea. — Percepti 



ion 



Perceptions and ideas are, both alike, groups of sen- fdeaTnter- 
sations; and, both alike, groups of sensations which ^^^^y 

aroused. 

are held together by the command of nature. They 
differ solely in this respect : that, when we perceive, 
the object which arouses the sensations is actually be- 
fore us, appealing to various sense-organs ; whereas, 
when we have an idea, the object is not before us, but 
the sensations are set up inside the brain without any 
disturbance of the organs on the surface of the body. 

Sensations may be set up from outside the body, by Instances of 
stimulation of eye or ear or nose ; or they may be set up p^^^^p^^°^ 
from within the body, by an excitation in the cortical area 



96 Perception 

to which the nerves from eye or ear or nose run (§§ 14, 16). 
This excitation may be aroused directly, by a change in the 
blood-supply of the cortical area ; or indirectly, by an im- 
pulse running to this area from other cells which have been 
exploded by a stimulus working at the outside of the body. 
Thus I may see a green tree in my mind's eye when there 
is before me neither any green object nor anything to sug- 
gest green : in this case the green-cells have been exploded 
by a change in blood-supply. Or I may see it because I 
am reading a description of scenery in which the printed 
word * green ' occurs : in this case the green-cells are 
exploded indirectly, by way of the word stimulus. A per- 
ception, then, contains sensations of the first kind, those set 
up from outside the body ; an idea consists wholly of sensa- 
tions of the second kind, those aroused directly or indirectly 
within the brain itself. When I am looking at a table, as it 
stands in front of me, I have a perceptio7i of a table, I per- 
ceive it ; but if I shut my eyes and think of a table, or if 
some particular table 'comes into my head' along with 
other memories, or if I am picturing to myself the sort of 
table I mean to buy when I am rich enough to furnish my 
study properly, then I have an idea of a table, I ideate it. 

Introspective This difference, however, is most certainly a differ- 
erences. ^^^^^ \\\2X makes itself knov^n to introspection. We 
can all tell a perception from an idea. Sometimes, 
it is true, v^e make laughable mistakes by confusing 
the tv^o : but only a drunkard or a madman would 
habitually confound real things with remembered or 
imagined things. What, then, is the introspective 
difference between the two groups of sensations } 

the idea is In the first place, (i) the sensations differ greatly 

less vivid 

in strength or intensity in the two cases. My per- 
ception of a table is much more vivid, much more of 
a living reality, than my idea of it is. Ideas are pale 



§ 39- Difference between Perception and Idea 97 

and faint, compared with perceptions. Again, (2) the 
sensations that make up the idea are less lasting 
than those of the perception. Of course, the percep- 
tion (just because it is mental) is a process^ a going 
on : as I look at the table the centre of interest 
changes, the attention travels from sensation to sensa- 
tion ; I cannot hold the whole sensation-group fixed 
and steady, as if it were a thing. But the idea is still less stable 
less stable, still more fluid ; the sensations that make 
it up come and go with even greater swiftness. And 
lastly, (3) the idea is less perfect, a less accurate pict- and less 
ure of the outside world, than the perception. Look f^an^the 
at the view from your window. Now shut your eyes, perception. 
and form an idea of the view. The space has shrunk, 
so to speak ; details are lost ; you are not sure about 
this and that feature of the landscape. Or try to 
form an idea of the happenings of five minutes. It 
is hardly possible : the time seems to have shrunk, as 
the space did in the previous example. — These are 
the three differences that introspection reveals be- 
tween perception and idea, between a sensation-group 
containing outside elements and a sensation-group 
made up entirely of elements from within the brain. 

Notice the important differences in conscious surroundings and Reason for 

conscious backo^round in the two cases. When we perceive, the these differ- 

. ences 

sensations are held fast, and constantly renewed by their stimuli. 

The details of the landscape, the events of the five minutes, are 
there to catch the eye and ear. But when we are merely ^ think- 
ing of something, there are no outside stimuli to attach our 
thought to, to refresh ourselves by ; it requires a greater effort to 
attend, and there is a crowd of rival ideas hovering round the 
central idea and ready to displace it. So the idea is weaker, 
more changeable and less complete than the perception. 

Since the differences between the inside and the outside sensa- 

H 



98 



Perception 



The outside 
world is a 
world of 
quality, 



of space 



and of time. 



All three 
aspects are 
practically 
important. 



tions are so great, some psychologists have held that their excita- 
tions must occur in different parts of the brain-cortex. This view 
is borne out by the recent work of Flechsig (see pp. 23, 90 f.), 
who distinguishes the sense-centres from the '- association ' cen- 
tres of the cortex. Thus a sensation of sight due to the action 
of light upon the eye would be set up by the explosion of cells in 
the sight-centre of the occipital lobes ; but if that sensation were 
recalled in memory, when no stimulus was present, it would be 
set up in an ^ association ' area of the cortex, an area lying be- 
tween the sight-centre and the centre for touch and organic sen- 
sation. Pathology offers confirmatory evidence ; but the matter 
is still in dispute, and will doubtless remain so for some time to 
come. (See Donaldson, Growth of Brain^ 266.) 

§ 40. The Three Classes of Perceptions. — There are 
three aspects of things that strike us, as we look out 
upon the world around us. (i) In the first place, wei 
are struck by the likenesses and differences among 
things. Everything is itself, and not something else ; 
and at the same time, everything is more like certain 
things than it is like certain other things. (2) Sec- 
ondly, we are struck by the arrangement of things 
in space. One thing is here, another there ; one is 
far off, another close at hand ; one is large, another 
small ; one of this form, another of that. And 
lastly, (3) we are struck by the progress of things 
in time. The thunder follows the lightning ; a bird 
flies across the landscape now slowly and now 
quickly ; the waves beat upon the shore with a defi- 
nite rhythm ; the shooting stars drop irregularly, in 
quick succession or at long intervals. 

All these aspects of things are of great practical impor- 
tance to us : otherwise, indeed, they would never have 
' struck ' us at all. Think of the importance of the first 
aspect for the merchant ! He must know good cloth from 
bad, good sugar from bad, good timber from bad ; else we 
shall not go to him to supply us with food and clothes and 



§ 40. The Three Classes of Perceptions 99 

shelter. Again, we must know how far off things are, and 
where they are, and how large they will prove to be when 
we get to them ; else navigation and the planning of towns 
and the building of houses would be impossible. Lastly, we 
must know when things happen, and how long they take, 
and how often they occur ; else we could not travel, — could 
not even lay out a single day's work. 

Each of these three aspects of material things 
gives rise to its own set of perceptions ; and each set 
of perceptions is built up upon a particular attribute 
or aspect of sensations, (i) Perceptions of the first We have 
kind may be termed perceptions of quality or qiiali- ^^^ ^ ^ ^^^' 
tative perceptions ; they tell us of the nature or 
quality of things. These perceptions are built up of 
sensations looked at as qualities (§ 22), without regard 
to their intensity, etc. (2) Perceptions of the second spatial 
kind are termed perceptions of space, or spatial per- 
ceptions. They are built up of sensations looked at 
as surfaces or extents, not as qualities or intensities. 
(3) Perceptions of the third kind are perceptions of and tempo- 
time or temporal perceptions, and are built up of [^n^^^^^^" 
sensations looked at as lengths of time, or durations, 
not as qualities, intensities or extents. 

We are already familiar with the idea that sensations have 
quality and, besides quality, a certain amount of strength or 
intensity. The fact that they have extent and duration is 
something that we have not hitherto touched on. 

Take duration first. Think of any sensation that occurs 
to you : a red, a sweet, a pressure, a strain, a tone, a scent. 
Can you think of it as lasting no time? No ! However 
short it is, it must last for a moment. And this character 
of lasting a little while, of having duration, — a character 
which belpn^firvto aTl sensations, from whatever organ they 



lOO Perception 

come, — is what makes it possible for them to combine in 
: such a way as to form time-perceptions. 

Extent is rather more difficult. We are accustomed to 
regard extent as a mark of material things, of solid bodies ; 
and it seems strange to say that mental processes have it. 
But think of a colour. Can you think of it in any other 
way than as a patch of colour, a spread-out colour ? How- 
ever small you make it in your thought, however much you 
reduce it to a point of colour, has it not still length and 
breadth? So with pressure on the skin. Think of a press- 
ure which is as point-like as you can conceive it, the pressure 
of a fine needle. Still it is spread out ; you could measure 
the length and breadth of the needle-point under the micro- 
scope : and you cannot form an idea of pressure at all 
except as having some length and breadth, some extent. 

This character of extent belongs only to sensations of 
sight and to the sensations of pressure coming from skin 
and joint. But these sensations never appear in conscious- 
ness without it ; and through it we get our perceptions of 
space. — No other sensations possess it : not even sensations 
of taste or temperature, still less those of sound and smell. 
It is curious to think, but it is true, that we should not 
know the world to be a space-world if we had no sensations 
. of colour or brightness or pressure. 

Instances of Most important of our qualitative perceptions are 
percepion. ^j^Qgg Qf colour (mixturc of brightness and pure 

colour), of a ' note ' or chord in music, of taste and 
smell, and of touch (mixture of skin sensations with 
those coming from muscle, tendon and joint). Among 
spatial perceptions we may mention those of place or 
position, of form, of size, of distance, of direction, of 
extent of movement ; and among temporal percep- 
tions, those of place or position in time, of rhythm, of 
frequency, and of rate of movement. Each of these 
perceptions has its own psychological history, its own 



§ 41- ^^^ Development of Perception loi 

mode of formation. We must be content here to 
touch very briefly upon a few of the most valuable. 

§ 41. The Development of Perception. — Before we Pure percep 
go on to deal with special perceptions, however, we 
must notice the fact that perception, like sensation, 
shows different strata or levels of development. In 
the early days of mental evolution, perception was 
wholly dominated by the object of perception, the 
material thing perceived. But as experience grew, 
and the store of ideas increased, the mind became 
ready to meet the material thing half-way ; a full and 
complete perception could be touched-off by some 
single aspect of the thing, and the other aspects 
supplied by sensations aroused within the brain. 
The perception now includes not only outside sen- assimilation 
sations, but in addition to these a large — perhaps an 
overwhelming — number of inside sensations. And 
lastly, as language developed, and men came to have 
more and more thoughts that they wished to com- 
municate to each other, the thing perceived degen- 
erated into a mere symbol or sign of the idea, and symbolic 
the group of central sensations, that its perception p^^^^p ^°^* 
brought into consciousness : the perceived thing was 
actually attended from, and the central sensations 
that clustered round the outside sensations were 
attended to. So we have a development in three 
stages : first the pure perception, made up entirely 
of outside sensations ; then the mixed perception, — 
or assimilation, as it is technically named, — made 
up partly of inside and partly of outside sensations ; 
and lastly the symbolic perception, in which the 



102 



Perception 



Instances of 
the three 
sorts of 
perception. 



only service done by outside sensations is that of 
arousing the important, inside processes. 

We have instances of the original form of perception in 
our own experience, when we are brought into contact with 
something altogether new and strange to us. Suppose, e.g,^ 
that a friend shows you a photograph, consisting of a circle, 
scrawled all over with random zigzag marks, mounted on a 
cabinet-sized card, and dated. What is it ? You do not 
know : you have a pure perception, — all that the thing 
means to you is just that which it is, a circular photograph 
of scrawls. — Then your friend says : '' What happened on 
that date?" A hght flashes across you : '* The great earth- 
quake ! " you say. Now the thing is not a photograph of 
scrawls; it is the record of an earthquake, a seismogram. 
Your perception has become mixed ; a mass of central sen- 
sations has been awakened, and gives the photograph a 
different and a more definite meaning. 

All our everyday perceptions are of this mixed sort, />., 
are assimilations, unless indeed they have advanced to the 
symbolic stage. Thus I say that I ' see ' my table. What I 
see, however, is merely a surface of a certain colour, dis- 
torted by perspective as I approach it from this side or 
from that. When I perceive the table, I have in mind a 
good deal more than the sensations coming in through the 
eye. I have ideas of hardness and smoothness, ideas of the 
uses of the table as a piece of furniture, perhaps the idea oi 
the word ^ table.' The perception is mixed. 

Chief among our symbolic perceptions are those of written 
and spoken words. As you have read this book, have you 
thought of the form of the words, the character of the type, 
the blackness of the letters ? Your aim has rather been to 
'understand' the words. You have instinctively attended 
from the material of perception, and attended to the ideas 
which that material called up. 

The result of this evolution is (i) that the psychologist has 
no easy task when he tries to find out how a particular percep' 



§ 42. Perceptions of Quality 103 

tion was first formed, and (2) that his enquiry is likely to end in 
the discovery of quite unexpected facts. Our minds are so well 
stocked with ideas, and our nervous tendencies have given us so 
many short cuts from fact to meaning (from pure to symbolic 
perception), that we hardly recognise our perceptions when they 
are dissected and laid out before us free from their central asso- 
ciates. Hence the reader must not be surprised if he cannot 
easily verify some of the following statements by an appeal to 
his own consciousness. 

§42. Perceptions of ftuality. — Qualitative percep- Qualitative 
tions have undergone less change than perceptions are formed 
of time and of space. This is natural : for if a thing to-day as 

they always 

IS sufficiently itself to impress its nature upon us, have been, 
there is no reason why this impression should be lost 
or modified ; indeed, the perception would cease to 
be of value as a perception of the thing's nature, if 
it were liable to change and modification. Percep- 
tions of time and space, on the other hand, once ac- 
quired slowly and laboriously, with continual testing 
and retesting, have changed much, and gained much 
by the change. It would be a great waste of time 
and energy if we were obliged to go through all the 
steps that our ancestors took, when we are called 
upon to judge of movement or rhythm, distance or 
direction ; but quality is the same for us as it was 
for them. 

All qualitative perceptions are formed upon the 
same plan. A number of sensation qualities are run by fusion 
together, fused or blended together ; and the result 
of the fusion or blending is the perception of the 
nature or character of some material object. 

Notice that the qualitative perception is not the sum of (i^o* by sum- 

, . ^ mation) oi 

the sensation qualities contained in it. That would be the sensations. 



I04 Perception 

case if the sensations were things, bits of mind in the literal 
sense. It cannot be the case when they are processes : 
processes run into each other, interfere with each other. 
Hence the qualitative perception is something less, and 
something more, than the sum of its sensation qualities : 
less, because some of the sensations overbear or check or in- 
terfere with others ; more, because the result of the mixture 
is novel, — is a perception^ a process that means something, 
a concrete process with a specific character of its own. 

Taste. We will take three illustrations, (i) Consider the 

' taste ' of coffee. This is a qualitative perception. 
It contains the sensations of bitter, the real taste of 
the coffee-berry ; of warmth ; of pressure, the * feel ' 
of the liquid in the mouth ; a peculiar fragrance, the 
coffee odour ; and a sight, the clear brown or cloudy 
brown of the coffee in the cup. These are the 
necessary, essential elements in the perception. 
There may be others : the sight sensation may bring 
with it a space idea, an idea of the position of cup 
and saucer upon the spread table, etc. ; and the word 
* coffee' may, very likely, be added. In this case 
the perception is of the mixed sort: but it may quite 
well be a pure perception of quality. In either case 
it is not the simple process that at first it seems to 

Resistance, be. (2) Consider the perception of resistance. Here 
we have the qualities of pressure on the skin ; of 
strain in the tendons, say, of the arm ; and of press- 
ure from the jamming together of joints and the 
contraction of muscles. Usually, a space suggestion 
is added : the form and direction of the door that 
resists us, or of the obstacle that we are trying to 

Clang. remove ; but the addition is not necessary. (3) Sup- 

pose that a note is sounded upon some instrument 



§ 42. Perceptions of Qtiality 105 

which we cannot see. Most people would tell us 
that the note is a single sensation ; and yet we are 
able to say at once that it is a piano note, or a violin 
or trumpet or banjo note. As a matter of fact, every 
note is a mixture of tones and noises. There is one 
loud tone, which gives its name to the note {c, d, <?, 
etc.); there are a number of weaker tones, higher in 
the scale than the loud note, and therefore called 
* overtones ' ; and there are a number of noise quali- 
ties (i/., 237; iV., ch. XXXV.). All these sensations 
fuse into the single note, the perception. But the 
same note sounds different on different instruments, 
because {a) the overtones are different, and {b) the 
noises are different. In the piano the noise is a dull 
thud; in the violin a harsh scrape; in the banjo a 
click or pluck, etc. In the piano certain overtones 
are strong, in the violin others, etc. The trained ear 
can pick out the separate overtones and noises ; the 
untrained ear can do no more than hear * the same 
note differently' 

The notes of a musical instrument are an excellent in- 
stance of qualitative perception. The space idea of the 
instrument, piano or violin, is not apt to combine with them ; 
and the result of the mixture of sensations is so different 
from a mere sum of tones and noises, so much ' itself,' that 
unmusical persons have difficulty in realising its complex 
nature. 

The chief reason why music employs no more than 90 Music 
out of the possible 11,000 tones (§ 18) is that the musical 
scale began as a voice-scale, a succession of tones sung. 
The range of the human voice is limited ; hence the musical 
scale is cut short at both ends. And our power to adjust 
the larynx is Hmited ; hence the unit of the musical scale 



pressure 



1 06 Perception 

(the musical 'semitone*) is much larger than the unit of 
hearing (the ' tone ' of § 18). Other reasons are the neces- 
sity of keeping a keyboard small enough for easy handling, 
the unpleasant shrillness of very high tones, the faintness of 
very low tones, etc. 

The 'local § 43. Perceptions of Space: Place or Locality upon 

nfe^siire^ the Skin. — If you are passing through a room in the 
dark, and bump your knee against something, you 
are quite sure that it is your knee that is hurt : more, 
you are sure that it is your right (or left) knee : and 
more still, you know that it is hurt just in one par- 
ticular place, above or below, to right or left, of the 
knee-cap. How do you know this } What tells you 
that the bump is a knee-bump } 

One might suppose, perhaps, that a knee-pressure 
is different, in quality, from a pressure elsewhere. 
But that is not the case : all pressure sensations are 
alike in quality. Regarded as pressures, knee-bump 
and shin-bump — to say nothing of right and left 
knee-bumps — are precisely the same. So we must 
look elsewhere for an explanation. 

We have two facts to notice. The first is that, 
although skin and joint are able to give us space 
perceptions (their pressure sensations having the 
attribute of extent), yet, in actual mental history, 
their development as ' space organs ' does not keep 
anything like even pace with the development of the 
eye. Doubtless there are perceptions of space in 
the animal kingdom before there are eyes ; but when 
the eyes have arrived, they make haste to take upon 
themselves the burden of supplying these perceptions. 
The eye, then, is the * space organ.' The second 



§ 44- Perceptions of Space: Position 107 

fact is that primitive man must have come into con- 
scious contact with things, for the most part, in the 
daytime ; in the dark he would have been sleeping. 
That is, he would see what struck him, and where it 
struck him. — Putting these facts together, we can is usually a 
understand what introspection shows : that most of ^^^^ ^^^ ' 
us know where we are pressed or struck by having 
2l picture of the place flash up in our minds, a picture 
which is very accurate at the centre, though very 
hazy in the surrounding parts. We can say, in the 
dark, " I have bumped my knee! " because a picture 
of the knee comes up at the moment of the bump : 
we can say, with our eyes shut, "You are touching 
my cheek! " because a picture of the cheek arises at 
the touch. The perception is a mixed perception. 

Not everybody has this picture, however. Those who do 
not have it * place' the bump or pressure by means of a 
word. The word ^knee' or ^ cheek ' occurs to them, as 
they are touched. They or their ancestors must have gone 
through the picture stage : but now their mental constitu- 
tion is such that the picture does not arise. The word, 
originally used to name the picture, has taken the picture's 
place altogether, by one of those mental * short cuts ' of 
which we spoke in § 41. 

§ 44. Perceptions of Space: Position. — The percep- 
tion of an object in space includes two perceptions : 
those of place and of distance. We have seen that 
place on the skin is perceived by sight : how, now, is 
place in the field of vision perceived } We see where 
we are touched : do we see where we see } 

Partly yes, partly no. (a) If a red patch be moved 
over the retina, from the centre outwards, — the eye 



io8 Perception 

The percep- being kept steady during the movement, — it will be 

tion of ' place 

where* by Seen as red only for a short time. When it gets to a 
certain distance from the centre, it becomes a greyish 
blue or yellow ; and as it travels still further, passes 
over into mere grey.^ Here, then, we have differences 
of sensation quality, corresponding to differences of 
place in the field of vision. Knowing that the patch 
was red, and seeing it bluish, we should know approxi- 
mately where it was : the eye could see where it saw, 
though the skin (all pressures being alike) cannot ^feel* 
where it 'feels.' But {b) it is needful for us to see 
things, to apprehend qualities, as they are ; and we 
therefore aJways move the eyes, so as to bring the ob- 
ject upon the centre of the retina. We do not allow a 
red to remain bluish, by remaining away from the cen- 
tre ; we look directly at it. Now plainly, the more we 
have to move the eye to get the object to the centre, 
the stronger will be the pressure and strain sensations 
from the muscles and tendons which turn the eye in its 
socket. So each *look' of the object gets welded to- 
gether with a special group of muscle and tendon 
sensations ; and the whole sensation-mass tells us 
where the object is. Partly, the eye sees where it 
sees, for itself ; partly, sensations of pressure and 
strain, added to the look of the object, tell us where 
the object is in the field of vision. 

This, then, is the way in which we are able to 
* place' an object in the field of vision. But how do 
we come to see it as a solid object } And how do we 
know its distance from us '^. 

^ This is Experiment 6, p. 52 above. 



§ 45- Perceptions of Space : Bodily Posture 109 

The perception of solidity is the result of our Thepercep* 
having two eyes. The eyes take two pictures of the solidity 
object, from two slightly different points of view. 
These pictures are laid over each other ; and their 
combination into a single picture results. But if a 
single picture is to be formed from two dissimilar 
pictures, the object which the picture represents 
must appear solid. 

So much, again, the eyes do for themselves; and, andofdis- 
again, the rest is done for them by the muscles and 
tendons around them. If an object is very near us, 
we must turn the eyes strongly inwards, towards 
each other, to see it. If it is far off, we can let the 
eyes swing outwards; until, if the object is at the 
horizon, they are both looking straight forward, par- 
allel with each other. The nearer the object, then, 
the greater is the pressure and strain about the eye ; 
the farther off the object, the less this pressure and 
strain. In every case of our looking at something 
in space, a special sensation-mass from muscle and 
tendon appears to tell us of the distance of the thing 
from us. 

§45. Perceptions of Space: Bodily Posture. — Our Bodily post- 
perception of the posture or attitude of our own body ceived^^^' 
is, in general, a perception of sight. We see how we ^^^^ 
are sitting or lying or standing. Even when we are 
in the dark, we call up a mental picture of ourselves 
to tell us of our position ; and in thinking how our 
legs are disposed under the table, we call up a like 
picture of the lower part of the body. 

At the same time, sensations from skin and joint 



VISU- 



no 



Perception 



play a very considerable part in this perception of our 
andtactuaiiy. own position. If the soles of our feet were rendered 
insensible, we should not walk as confidently as we 
do with sensations constantly coming in from the 
skin of ball and heel. If the hips became insensible 
^ to the weight of the body, we should make grievous 
mistakes in estimating our position. Moreover, we 
have seen (§ i8) that a special sense-organ, the 
shake-organ in the ear, is set apart to give us warn- 
ing of any loss of balance or of command of ourselves 
in space. 

Suppose that you are lying full-length, your eyes shut, on 
a board which can be tilted up and down like a seesaw. 
Your head is lowered, and you are to call out when you are 
^standing on your head.* You call out much too soon : as 
soon as the weight of the body begins to tell upon the 
back of the neck, jamming the vertebrae together, you 
think that you are vertical. — ■ Now you are brought back 
to the horizontal ; you are to call out when you are lying 
perfectly flat. You calLtoo late ; not till the weight gets 
well off the neck, and you ^ feel your feet,' do you think 
that you are level. Evidently, then, the distribution of the 
weight of the body, the jamming of some joints and the 
free play of others, has something to do with our percep- 
tion of the posture of the body. 

§ 46. Perceptions of Space : Movement. — Movement 
can be perceived in two ways : by touch (sensations 
from skin, muscle, tendon and joint) and by sight. 

(i) If we are carried through space at an even 
rate, without jar, we have no perception of move- 
ment. The earth rotates on its axis ; it revolves 
round the sun; it rushes forward with the sun into 
space. We *feel' nothing of all this movement, 



Tactual per- 
ception of 
movement. 



^ 



§ 46. Perceptions of Space : Movement 1 1 1 

because it is quite even and uniform. So you do not 
know that you are rising in a balloon, until you look 
over the side of the car and see the trees and houses 
getting smaller beneath you ; you do not ' feel ' the 
motion. One may have the same experience, of 
ignorance of movement, on a sail-boat or in a well- 
hung and rubber-tired carriage. 

As soon as the movement slows or quickens, how- 
ever, we perceive it. When the brake is put on the 
carriage, you are thrown forward ; as the speed 
increases, you are forced back against the cushions. 
This throwing backward and forward means a shift 
of the weight of your body, a change in the press- 
ures upon your skin, a stretching of certain muscles 
and tendons and a tightening of others, a jamming 
of this joint and a pulling-apart of that. The mass 
of sensations thus aroused gives you the percep- 
tion of movement. , 

We can perceive the movement of a single limb (arm or 
leg) by the help of joint sensations alone. The turning of 
the joint in its socket tells us both that the limb is moving 
and how far it has gone. We might be blind, and have no 
sensations from skin, muscle or tendon ; and we should still 
know when, and how far, our limbs moved. 

The sensations from skin, joint, tendon and muscle that give 
us the perception of movement are sometimes called, for that 
reason, motor sensations. But we do not sense movement, — 
there is no peculiar movement organ; we perceive it. Hence it 
is best not to use the phrase ' motor sensations.' 

(2) The earliest perception of movement by the visual per- 
eye consisted in seeing something ' in two places at movement 
once.' Think of the fall of a shooting star down the 
sky. The star leaves a trail of light behind it as it 



112 Perception 

drops ; so that you see it, so to speak, at the place 
it started from, and at the place where it disappears, 
all in the same moment. Seeing it thus, you perceive 
that it has moved. 

We do not need now to see the moving object in 
two places at once ; but we must remember that it 
was in a different place a little while ago, if we are 
to perceive its movement. We * see ' that the train 
moves across the landscape, because we remember 
that a second ago it was at that tree, and a second 
before at that other tree, and so on. If the whole 
landscape moved, trees and train and all, — ourselves 
and our standing-ground included, — we should not 
perceive the movement. 

We said just now that the solar system is rushing on into 
space. We do not ^ feel ' the movement, because it is even 
and uniform ; we do not see it, because everything is mov- 
ing : there is no * tree 'from which the movement starts, no 
fixed point which we can remember having passed so many 
seconds or minutes or hours ago. Just as we perceive the 
movement of the body by touch only when the rate of move- 
ment changes, so we see movement only when an object 
changes its position among other, fixed objects. 

§ 47. Perceptions of Time : Rhythm. — All sensa- 
tions have the attribute of duration, of lasting a little 
while ; so that any class of sensations can give rise 
to perceptions of time. For the particular time-per- 
ception that we have chosen for discussion here, 
however, — for the perception of rhythm^ — two sen- 
sation-groups are of especial importance : the tactual 
group, made up of sensations from skin, muscle, 
tendon and joint; and the tactual-auditory group, 



§ 47- Perceptions of Time : RliytJnit 113 

made up of these sensations and of sensations of 
hearing. 

(i) The four limbs are, so to speak, four pendu- Tactual 
lums, attached to the trunk of the body. As we run ^^^ "^* 
or walk, the legs swing alternately, and with each 
leg swings the arm of the opposite side. Here we 
have the basis of the idea of rhythm ; a strong sensa- 
tion-mass from the leg whose foot rests upon the 
ground, the leg that carries the weight of the body, 
followed at equal intervals by a weak sensation-mass 
from the leg that swings through the air before its 
foot is set down. As the leg swings, the arm 
swings ; and at the moment that the foot is set 
down, the arm pulls with its full weight upon the 
shoulder ; so that the strong leg-sensations are rein- 
forced by strong arm-sensations, and the weak by 
weak. The rhythm is thus still further accented. 

(2) This movement-rhythm, as we may call it, — Tactuai- 
the alternation of strong and weak sensation-masses rhvthm^ 
from some moving part of the body, arm or hand or 
foot, — plays a part in every perception of rhythm. 
But pure movement-rhythm has not been nearly so 
highly developed as the compound rhythm of move- 
ment and hearing. The reason is that the limbs are 
fixed to the body ; they can do no more than oscillate 
to and fro, up and down ; while sounds are free, not 
attached to anything, and so can be divided up into 
rhythmical groups at pleasure. Movement can give 
us nothing but one-two rhythms ; sound and move- 
ment together give us the one-two-three rhythms of 
music and dancing. 

We are so accustomed to regard rhythm as something to 
I 



114 Perception 

hear that the reader may never have thought of walking or 
running as a movement-rhythm (/r^j-i^- swing, /r^j-^- swing), 
but only as a hearing rhythm (//'<3:;;^/-tramp, tramp-Xxdcccc^^ , 
But close your ears with cotton-wool and walk across the 
room, letting your arms swing naturally with the movement 
of the legs. You can easily get into the movement-rhythm : 
one-2Sidi one-and one. Notice the strong jerk or pull of the 
heavy arm at each one^ i.e., at each pressure of a foot upon 
the floor. 

When next you listen to music, notice that you ' keep 
time ' not by the ear only, but by some movement (of head, 
finger, etc.) as well. 

§ 48. What Perception Means. — We cannot here 
discuss more of the perceptions that fall under the 
three heads of quality, space and time; the examples 
chosen must suffice. These few instances, however, 
are enough to show the reader what the value of per- 
ception is, and what * perceiving' means to us. 
Perception Plainly, perception means a breaking-up of the 

the outside world around us. To the primitive animal and to 
world. the human infant the world must be, in Professor 

James' language, ** one big blooming buzzing Confu- 
sion." As the sense-organs grow, as the channels 
through which the world gains entry into mind be- 
come more numerous and more complicated, this 
Confusion is broken up into parts : quality parts, 
space parts, time parts. Mind is never fully able to 
cope with the world : there are stars that our best 
telescopes cannot find, and animal structures too deli- 
cate for our finest microscopes to reveal. But the 
farther perception goes, the more concrete processes 
we have that mean different parts or aspects of the 
material universe, the better do we understand the 



§ 49- Illusions of Perception 115 

world. With perception comes knowledge : without 
perception we should be without science. Just as 
the course of animal evolution runs from creatures 
made up of a single sort of tissue to creatures of many 
tissues, — blood and nerves and muscles and bone 
and the rest, — so does mental evolution run from the 
confused one-tissue knowledge of the infant to the 
many-sided, differentiated knowledge of the scientific 
man. We saw in § 41 that perception itself under- 
goes transformation and development; but no one 
of the three steps there mentioned is so important as 
the first step of all, — the step from the single world 
of confusion to the ordered world of perception. 

§ 49. Illusions of Perception. — Mind, however, is illusory per- 
not wholly adequate to the world ; we do not always ^^^ ^°"^' 
perceive aright. For one thing, the sense-organs are 
not always equal to the demands laid upon them : 
a bird may be 'too far off to be seen,' and yet it 
would be wrong to say that there is no bird in the 
sky. For another, we are biassed in our outlook 
over nature ; our nervous tendencies, which lead us 
to apperceive objects rather than to perceive them, 
are likely to lead us astray, to make us see what is 
not there, or to fail in seeing what is. So there arise 
what are called illusions^ perceptions in which the 
world is ' playing with ' us (Lat. Indus, game) instead 
of telling us the truth about itself. 

The most important and most instructive illusions 
are those of space perception, in its various forms. 

Illusions of 7^<?r;;/. — Draw a perfect square. Notice that of form, 
it looks higher than it is broad. The reason is that the 



1 16 Perception 

muscles around the eyes can move them out and in more 
easily than they can move them up and down. Since it 
requires more effort to look up and down the square than 
to look across it, the distance up and down is taken to be 
greater. 

Draw a number of ' squares ' which are a little lower than 
they are broad. Note which of them looks to be exactly 
right, a real square. Measure the height and subtract it 
from the breadth. The result gives you the amount of the 
illusion, 
of size, Illusions of Size. — It is a curious fact that, if a thing be 

estimated by touch (that is, by the skin with the assistance 
of muscle, tendon and joint) it seems to be larger than it 
does to the eye ; whereas, if it be estimated by the skin 
alone, it seems smaller than it does to sight. Thus a hollow 
tooth ' feels ' much larger, both to tongue and finger, than it 
looks in the mirror. Since we have learned to trust our 
eyes, we regard the tactual perception as illusory. 

We read, however, that men born blind, and restored to 
sight by a surgical operation, are surprised at the largeness 
of the objects about them. This does not mean, as it might 
seem to do, that tactual space is smaller than the space of 
sight. The things seen appear to the patient to press in 
upon him, he remaining passive ; just as solid bodies press 
down upon the passive skin. It is skin-space, then, that he 
compares with the space of sight : and it is this skin-space, 
not tactual space, that seems to him to be smaller than the 
sight-space. 

The facts mean, evidently, that we live in three distinct 
spaces : skin-space, touch-space and eye-space. The three 
do not altogether agree : there is no real reason why they 
should, since the organs are different. We have learned 
always to believe the eye, however, and so look upon the 
skin-size and touch-size of things as illusory. — 

An illusion of size is given in Fig. ii. The vertical line 
looks longer in the upper figure than in the lower. This is 
because the eyes are tempted to run on, beyond the vertical, 



§ 49- Illusions of Perception 



117 




Apperceptive 
illusions. 





in the one <^ase ; while they are checked, held back, at the 
ends of the vertical in the other. 

Illusions of Direction, — The laws of perspective are largely of direction, 
based upon illusions of direction. Look out along 
a railway track : the lines seem to meet at the 
horizon, though you know that they do not. 
Look at your table, from one corner of the room : 
it seems to be a trapezoid, though you know that 
it is a parallelogram. The seen direction of the 
lines is illusory. 

These illusions are all illusions of the first class ; 
due to the inability of the sense-organs to meet 
the requirements laid upon them. Apperceptive 
illusions are equally common. Thus if we are 
walking after a shower on a moonlight evening, we 
may take the shadow of a tree-trunk for a runnel 
of water, and step over it. Our mind is full of 
ideas of wetness. — Or in traversing a lonely spot 
at night-time we may see a ghost, which proves on 
nearer examination to be a white birch-trunk or 
a white post. Our mind is full of ghost-stories. 

— Cf. ZT., Lesson X. fig. h 

In all cases of space illusion, the final appeal is to The final 
the eye. Not to the unassisted eye ; for that is itself the^eye/ 
subject to illusion: but to the measuring eye, — the 
eye armed with a ruler and a pair of compasses. 
What touch and sight tell us of the world of space 
may, as we have learned by experience, be very far 
from right. What sight tells us under the conditions 
of measurement we believe to be true ; the railway 
lines a7'e parallel, the table is a parallelogram, the 
verticals of Fig. 1 1 are equal, the square is equilateral, 

— in spite of all appearances to the contrary, — 
because the measuring eye tells us so. Measured or 
mathematical * seeing' is always 'believing.' 




1 1 8 Perception 



Questions and Exercises 

(i) Qualitative Perceptions. 

I . The middle c of the piano contains, as overtones, the c 
and g of the next higher octave, and the c^ e and g of 
the octave above that. Strike some one of these over- 
tones softly, by itself. Then strike the middle c loudly, 
and try to hear in it the overtone which you sounded a 
moment before. If you think you can, sing the over- 
tone, and then strike the note to make sure that you 
have it correctly. 
^ 2. Have a number of chords struck on the piano : chords of 
two, three, four notes, in random order. After a chord 
has been struck, ask yourself how many notes it con- 
tained. Continue the practice until you can distinguish 
accurately a two-chord from a three-chord, etc. 

3. Try, by introspection, to find out what sensations are 

contained in the following perceptions : hardness, wet- 
ness, roughness, the ' taste ' of tea, the * taste ' of lemon- 
ade. Make several trials of the perceptions themselves^ 
and then introspect them. 

(2) Spatial Perceptions. 

4. Have yourself touched, while your eyes are closed, at 

various parts of the body. How do you know where 
you are touched? Introspect very carefully. 

5. If you were touched on the wrist and on the chest, and 

tried (with your eyes shut) to re-touch the places 
struck, you would get more nearly right on the wrist 
than you would on the chest. Why? 

6. Close your eyes. Let the experimenter take a pair of 

blunt-pointed drawing compasses, and set the points 
down evenly upon your wrist, crosswise. If the points 
are near together, you will ' feel ' only one pressure ; if 
they are a certain distance apart, two pressures. The 
experimenter must alter the distance between the points, 
little by little ; in one series beginning with a distance 
that clearly gives one, and in a second series with a 
distance that clearly gives two pressures ; until he finds 
the distance at which oneness passes over into twoness. 
This distance, averaged from the two series, gives a 



Questions and Exercises 



119 




measure of your ability to distinguish places upon the 
skin. — Compare the wrist distance with similar dis- 
tances upon the forehead, 
cheek, and back of the neck. 
What conclusions do you 
draw from the difference ^ 
between the distances ? 

7. Combine a number of double 

pictures in the stereoscope. 
Note carefully how the pict- 
ures on the two halves of 
the slide differ. When you 
have grown used to the in- 
strument, try to combine 
simple pictures (the common 
outline drawings of truncated 
cones or pyramids) by the 
unaided eye. Look straight 
through the slide, towards a 
point beyond it ; and move * 
the slide back and forth, ^^^' ^^ 

until the pictures coalesce. It is a good plan to prac 
tise this '• free stereoscopy ' with transparent (celluloid) 
slides ; the drawings you can easily make for your- 
self in ink. 

The Stereoscope (Fig. 12). — Light is reflected to the 
eyes, along the dotted lines, from the two pictures, a, b. 
The reflected rays are so refracted by the prisms, ^, d^ 
that they appear to come from a single point, ^, lying 
on the far side oi a^b. Hence we see 2X e 2, single 
picture, formed by the superposition of the two pict- 
ures, a and b. 

8. Put one of the photographic slips in the drum of the 

stroboscope and twirl it swiftly, so that you can get 
the illusion of movement. Then begin again, moving 
the drum at first very slowly, and later on more 
quickly; so that you build up the illusion in stages. 
Notice each stage. — Explain the illusion {cf. Experi- 
ment 5, p. 51 above). 

The Stroboscope (Fig. 13). — A cardboard drum, «, 
open above, can be twirled upon the handle, b. The 



I20 



Perception 



9 



upper half of the wall of the drum is pierced at regular 
intervals by vertical slits. The lov^^er half is covered, 
on the inside, by a slip of paper upon which the sepa- 
rate phases of some movement (the flight of a bird, the 
gallop of a horse) 
have been drawn 
or photographed. 
As the drum turns, 
one looks down, 
through the slits 
upon the inserted 
slip. 
Aristotle suggested 
the following way 
of proving that the 
final appeal in space 
matters is to the 
eye. Cross the 
second over the 




Fig. 13 



10. 



first finger of your right hand. Place a pencil 
between the crossed joints. Since, under natural 
conditions, the outsides of the first and second fingers 
never touch the same object, the skin tells you that 
t\yo objects are now in contact with it. The eye * 
contradicts the skin ; and so strong is the contradic- 
tion that you do not even ' feel ' the pencil as two 
objects while your eyes are open. 

Now shut your eyes, and let the experimenter put 
either one thing or two things between your crossed 
fingers, as he chooses. Not knowing whether you 
are ' feeling ' one thing or two, you cannot appeal to 
a mental picture. The result is that the skin has' its 
own way, and you soon ' feel ' two objects in every 
experiment, whether one or two be really between 
your fingers. 

N. B. — This account of Aristotle's experiment 
holds only for those to whom the experiment is 
new. If you have practised it as a child, you will 
get the twoness of the pencil at once whether your 
eyes are open or not. 
Draw two semicircles, oi i cm. radius, in the posi- 



Questions and Exercises 12 1 

tion ([ (^. Draw the diameter to the left-hand curve. 
This seems now to include less space than the other, 
open semicircle. Why? 

11. It is very important to realise the difference between 

touch-space and skin-space. Take a piece of stiff 
card, with a smooth edge of 12 cm. Cut pointed 
teeth along the edge. Estimate the length of the 
jagged edge, with closed eyes, (i) by passing the 
finger along the points (touch), and (2) by having 
the teeth pressed down upon the skin of your fore- 
arm (pressure). You will think that the card is 
longer than it looks to be, in the first case, and 
shorter than it looks to be, in the second. 

(3) Temporal Perception. 

12. Shut your eyes, and hold a watch to your ear. See 

how many rhythms you can throw the ticks into. 
Write down the forms and accents of the rhythms. 

13. Close your eyes. Let the experimenter draw a pencil, 

at an even rate, from your elbow to the tip of the 
middle finger. The pencil seems to travel more 
quickly at some places than at others. Draw a fig- 
ure of the arm, and mark in the places of apparent 
slowing and quickening. Explain by reference to 
Exp. II, p. 54. 

14. Is a purely visual rhythm possible ? Is there any other 

well-marked tactual (one-two) rhythm, besides that 
of the limbs? 

(4) Why is the mixed perception termed an ' assimilation'? 

(5) If sensations of taste and of temperature have not the attri- 

bute of extent, how do you explain their apparent extensity ? 

(6) It is said above, § 42, that qualitative perceptions have 

undergone less change than those of space and time. 
What change have they undergone? How is it that this 
change has not deprived them of their value ? 

References 
James, Textbook, chs. xx., xxi. Sully, Hjitnan Mind, vol. I., ch. 
viii. Titchener, Outline, §§ 43-51. Wundt, Lects., VIII. - 
XIII.; Outlines, §§ 8-11 ; Geovi.-opt, Tdnschungen, 1898. 
See also: Th. Lipps, Rau/naesthetik, 1897; Sanford, Course^ 
esp. pp. 212 ff. 



CHAPTER VII 

Idea and the Association of Ideas 
Idea as § SO. The Development of Ideas. — The ideas of the 

reproduction • v • j '^ i i. i • 

of percep- primitive mmd are, as it were, photographic copies, 
tion. life-likenesses, of the perceptions which go before 

them. Thus the idea of a landscape would be in 
part a picture-idea, the look of stream and hills and 
trees ; in part a sound-idea, the idea of splashing 
water and rustling boughs ; in part a tactual idea, 
the * feel ' of springing grass and moving wind ; in 
part a smell-idea, a remembered freshness and* fra- 
grance of air and flowers. The life-likeness is, of 
course, never perfect : the idea is weaker, passes by 
more quickly, and is more sketchy, than the percep- 
tion that corresponds to it : but the qualities of the 
perception are found again in the idea. Produced in 
perception, they are rep7'oduced in idea. 
Idea as This, howcvcr, is only the first stage in the devel- 

opment of the idea. The brain-cortex has in most 
cases a tendency to work more easily at one part 
than at another. Or — to speak in terms of mental 
constitution — minds are so constituted that their 
processes run more easily along certain channels 
than along others. Hence it happens that those 
elements in a perception which do not fit in with 
our mental constitution are very soon dropped out 
of the idea; the idea is a copy or life-likeness of only 
a part of the perception. And further, if the nervous 

122 



translation of 
perception. 



§ 51- The Four Chief Memory-types 123 

tendencies are strongly marked, ideas may cease to 
be even partial copies of perceptions. Just as we 
translate words and sentences from one language 
into another, so may the nervous system translate 
a perception into more familiar terms, — into an idea 
which has none of the qualities that were contained 
in the perception, but replaces them by other and 
more familiar qualities that mean the same thing. 

We describe the differences between minds whose Memory- 
ideas are still at least partial copies of perceptions ^^^^ 
by saying that they show differences of memory-type. 
Such minds have a preference, so to speak, for a par- 
ticular kind or type of idea : for picture-ideas, sound- 
ideas, etc. Minds of the second order, those whose 
ideas are translations out of the language of percep- 
tion into an entirely different language, belong for 
the most part to one or other of the verbal sub-types, and sub- 
For the language into which their perceptions are ^^^^* 
translated is nearly always a language of words ; 
their ideas are word-ideas, no matter what the per- 
ceptions may have been. 

We have now to examine these types and sub- 
types, in order to see what the ideas are that make 
up the individual consciousness in each case. 

§ 51. The Four Chief Memory-types. — The two 
most highly developed senses are those of sight 
and hearing. It is natural, then, that there should 
be minds which are almost wholly eye-minds or ear- 
minds : eye and ear furnish so many differences of 
sensation quality that they are able of themselves to 
represent a great many aspects of the physical world, 
without calling in help from the other sense-organs. 



124 Idea and tJie Association of Ideas 



Auditory 
type. 



Visual type. (i) If a mind is of the vistial or eye type, all its 
thoughts and memories and imaginations will consist 
of ideas of sight. If, e.g., an operatic performance 
is recalled, the scenes will be pictured, and the dress 
and movement of the performers seen over again ; 
but the music will not be remembered. The sound- 
parts of the perception have dropped out, and only 
the sight-parts are left. The mind of the inventor 
is likely to be predominantly of this type : he sees 
the machine that he is designing, in the mind's eye, 
before it has been built. (2) If, on the other hand, 
a mind is of the auditory or ear type, its memories 
will be memories of things heard, and not of things 
seen. Stage and performers will be forgotten, and 
only the music remembered. Friends will be thought 
of not as pictures, figures of a certain appearance 
clothed in a certain way, but as sounds, as voices or 
footsteps. The minds of orators and of musical com- 
posers may be of this type. Every one knows the 
story of the deaf Beethoven's playing, the tears roll- 
ing down his cheeks as he heard in idea what he 
could not hear in outward perception. And it is 
most useful to the public speaker to be able to hear 
his coming sentences, with their right ring and em- 
phasis upon them, before he actually delivers them 
to his audience. 

(3) There is another group of perceptions, — not 
so rich in sensation qualities as the perceptions of 
sight and hearing, but still of great importance for 
our knowledge of the external world, — which fur- 
nishes a third memory-type : the tactual or (as it is 
less well called : § 46) motor type. Tactual percep- 



Tactual type. 



§ 51. The Four Chief Memory-types 125 

tions are made up of the sensation qualities that 
come to us from skin, muscle, tendon and joint: they 
are perceptions of hardness and softness, roughness 
and smoothness, resistance and effort, movement or 
position of the limbs, etc. It is plain, however, that 
useful as tactual ideas (life-likenesses of tactual per- 
ceptions) may be, a mind made up of them and of 
them alone will be very much at fault in its thoughts 
and memories. True, it will be useful for the inventor 
to have the power of ' feeling ' in himself the pulls 
and stresses and strains to which the various parts of 
his machine must be subject; but he will hardly be 
able to design the machine unless he can see it as 
well as ^ feel ' it. So the oi^ator may * feel ' his com- 
ing sentences ; but he will hear them too. Indeed, a 
mind dominated by tactual ideas, the pure tactual 
type, is rare. Either it reduces to the verbal sub-type 
(§ 52), or it is one of the types represented in the 
mixed type which we now pass to consider. 

Cooks and confectioners are employing a pure tactual memory 
when they judge by stirring that a dough or batter has attained 
the right consistency. But this mode of judgment is confined to 
a few special cases. Even when one picks out chords or airs on 
the piano by finger-memory, one is always guided, to some ex- 
tent, by hearing ; the tactual memory is mixed with auditory. 
This, however, does not detract from the value of the tactual 
memory; it is, as every player knows, of great importance to the 
pianist. 

(4) The last of the four chief memory-types is the Mixed type. 
inixed type. When a mind is of this constitution, 
the sensation tendencies of the nervous system are 
more or less evenly balanced. The operatic perform- 
ance is remembered in all three ways, as something 
seen, as something heard, and as something 'felt ' ; 



126 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

stage and performers are visible once more, voice 
and orchestra are heard again, and the ease or difiEi- 
culty with which the singers reached their high and 
low notes is sympathetically revived in one's own 
throat muscles. This is the most useful memory- 
type, simply because it gives the most complete 
account of the outside world, because it reproduces 
the event thought of under the greatest variety of 
aspects. But an equal balance of tendencies is rare : 
even when a mind is to be classed as * mixed ' in type, 
experiment generally shows that some one side of it 
(the eye-side, ear-side, etc.) is more strongly devel- 
oped than the others. 

Importance § 52. The Three Verbal Sub-types. — We said just 
ideir " ^^^ ^^CidX words offer a common language into which 
all ideas, no matter what their perceptions are com- 
posed of, may be translated. Changing the metaphor, . 
we may say that words are the common denominator 
of all ideas or perceptions, — something in which 
they may all be expressed. 

Every adult mind is made up, to a considerable 
extent, of word-ideas. We are born into an atmo- 
sphere of words ; we are talked to from our earliest 
infancy ; we learn to talk in the second year of our 
life. An intelligent child of two years may have a 
vocabulary of 300 or 400 words ; it is on record that 
an intelligent child of six may have a vocabulary of 
2,000. And there is no experience, however uncom- 
mon or overpowering its incidents, which cannot be 
expressed in words. 

The word-idea has three forms : visual, auditory 



§ 52. The Three Verbal Sub-types 127 

and tactual. It may be the idea of the word seen, in Verbal sub- 

1 . 1 r 1 1 types : visual, 

print or m manuscript ; or the idea 01 the word auditory, 
heard, whether in one's own voice or in that of factual, 
another; or the idea of the word 'felt,' whether in 
speaking (felt in the muscles of the throat) or in writ- 
ing (felt in the muscles of the hand) . The ideas of 
an eye-mind will, naturally, pass most readily into the 
visual word form ; those of an ear-mind into the audi- 
tory word form ; and those of the tactual mind into 
one of the tactual word forms. Thus the recollection 
of the operatic performance, in a word-mind, might 
be a printed account of the music and acting (verbal- 
visual ideas) ; or the sound of a voice describing the 
performance (verbal-auditory ideas) ; or the ' feel ' of 
the same voice in the throat (verbal-tactual or verbal- 
motor ideas) . 

We take our own way of thinking so much as a matter of 
course, that it is difficult for us to realise how many different 
ways there are of thinking the same thing. Hence while some 
part of the two last Sections will come familiarly to every reader, 
there will doubtless be other parts which, at first sight, seem 
almost incomprehensible. A little cross-questioning of friends, 
however, will probably bring all the types and sub-types to 
light. 

At the same time, it is hardly probable that we ever get, in 
normal cases, a perfectly pure type or sub-type. The verbal- 
tactual occurs, perhaps, most frequently in comparatively pure 
form. The others are always ^ mixed' to some degree. Thus 
the verbal-auditory is usually verbal-tactual as well ; and the 
verbal-visual generally has a trace of the verbal-auditory, and so 
of the verbal-tactual. The four main types are, then, ideal types 
only : what happens is that some minds incline strongly towards 
eye or ear or touch memory, and others as strongly to a balance 
of the partial memories. This complexity of mental constitution 
is easily understood, when we remember the great complexity of 
the nervous system, and the large number of sense-channels 
through which the outside world gains access to consciousness. 



128 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

Reproduc- §53. The Minor Memory-types. — The ideas of 

tion of smells , , i n it • r .1 • 

and tastes taste and smell are very seldom copies of their per- 
IS rare. ceptions. In the life of primitive man, taste and 

smell have an important function to discharge (§ 20); 
and even to-day their sensations and perceptions 
affect us strongly (§ 25). But as civilisation advances, 
we depend less and less upon them and more and 
more upon verbal knowledge, — upon what we read 
in books on diet, or upon what our physician tells us. 
Hence life-likenesses of taste and smell qualities are 
not included, as a rule, in our stock of ideas. 

Try to recall the scent of a rose. You have, probably, a 
picture-idea of the flower, and a tactual idea of the contrac- 
tion of the nostrils in sniffing. Perhaps you actually do 
sniff; so that you perceive this contraction, and get sensa- 
tions of pressure and temperature from the air inhaled. 
Perhaps, too, the word ' rose ' comes to mind, either alone 
or combined with some other word that suggests the rose 
scent, — ^ attar ' or ' essence ' or ^ perfume.' But the scent 
itself is, in all probability, not present in the idea. 

It is possible that, with continued practice, the power of im- 
aging scents could be regained. Oftentimes on entering a 
room we have an illusion of smell: we say, "Don't I smell 
sandalwood ? '' or " heliotrope '' or what not. This fact seems to 
show that scents are, even now, occasionally recalled as true 
smell-ideas, life-likenesses of perceptions. For the most part, 
however, the power is unemployed, if not lost. 

We can hardly speak, then, of a smell-type or a 
Organic tastc-typc. On the other hand, the organic type is 
^^^* of some importance. There are people who, in re- 

calling an event of their past experience, revive or 
repeat the internal bodily attitude in which they met 
the event. It is not that they set to work deliber- 
ately to reproduce the * sinking of the stomach ' and 



§ 53- ^^^ Minor Memory-types 129 

heart-beat and internal tremors and quiverings which 
accompanied the original experience ; but rather that, 
when they recall this experience in the form most 
naturaLto them, — visual, auditory, etc., — the inter- 
nal or organic sensations come up ^ of themselves,* 
in perception, along with the pictures or sounds that 
stand for the experience in idea. 

We saw in § 25 that the organic sensations enter with Signs of 
quite especial readiness into feelings ; i,e., have an especial °^^^^^^ 

^ ir o ; ? r memory. 

power of attracting the attention. This trait is clearly 
shown in the memories of the organic type. If a man is 
greatly moved when he recounts an experience of many 
years ago, — becoming angry now as he was then, grieving 
now as he grieved then, etc., — you may be sure that he 
has an organic memory, whatever his principal type may 
be. His anger or grief fastens itself to the revived internal 
sensations. If, on the other hand, he tells you of his past 
griefs and angers calmly and coolly, you may be sure that 
there is no revival of the inward stir-up which took place 
when they were originally felt ; there is no organic memory. 

Since organic memory shows itself in a feelings it has been • Affective 
supposed by some psychologists that the feeling-side of the memory.' 
original experience is remembered, and that we should speak 
not of organic, but of affective memory. We have seen, how- 
ever, that it is impossible to attend to an affection (§ 33) ; and 
since we are attentive when we are trying to remember, it is 
plain that we cannot recall an affection. The affection comes 
with the organic sensations that make up the * internal bodily 
attitude.'' 

It is not perfectly correct, either, to speak of organic No true 
memory. For the organic sensations are not recalled in ^^^^^^^ , 

, . memory. 

idea ; they are revived, actually set up again in the body, 
when the memory pictures or sounds come to mind. Still, 
they colour the memory ; it is very different with them from 
what it would be without them. Hence we may give or- 
ganic memory rank as a secondary or minor type, though it 

K 



130 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

cannot be counted with the four chief types of § 51. The 
organic sensations come up in accordance with the law of 
the association of ideas^ of which we have now to speak. ' 

§ 54. The Association of Ideas. — Sensations are 
welded together, at the bidding of nature, to form 
perceptions; and the sensations produced by the 
presence of an object in perception are reproduced 
in idea. But as the number of perceived objects 
increases, it must plainly happen that one and the 
same sensation will be called upon to do duty in 
more than one perception or idea. The quality of 
blue, e.g.^ belongs to water and sky, to certain flowers 
and birds, to certain earths and rocks, — to say noth- 
ing of human productions ; it occurs in a vast num- 
ber of different perceptions. By being used over 
and over again, in this way, every sensation gets 
into habits of connection with other sensations ; while 
these, in their turn, form habits of connection with 
yet others, and so on. 
The law of Now it is One of the most important laws of mind 

that all the connections set up between sensations^ by 
their welding together into perceptions and ideas, 
tend to persist. A sensation which has once formed 
connections with other sensations cannot shake them 
off and be its own bare self again, — the bare sensa^ 
tion that it was when it entered for the first time into 
a perception, — but carries its connections about with 
it; so that whenever it has a place in a conscious- 
ness, the connected sensations tend to be dragged in 
also. This law is the law of the association of ideas. 

There are various points that we must notice, in regard 
to this law of association, before we proceed to discuss 



association. 



§ 54- '^^^ Association of Ideas 131 

the two forms of association, the simultaneous and the 
successive. 

(i) Notice that the work of association, the associat/;^^, is Sensations 
done not by ideas but by sensations contained in ideas. A sen- associate; 
sation (blue), which is contained in my perception or idea of a 
lake, is also contained in my idea of M. Bouguereau's picture, 
" Our Lady of the Angels." When I see or think of the lake, I 
think of the picture. The ideas are associated: but it is a sen- 
sation that does the work. 

(2) Notice, on the other hand, that although the sensation ideas are 
does the work it is ideas, meanings, that are associated. My associated. 
idea of the lake does not call up an idea of the blue in the 

picture, but an idea of the whole picture. The associat^^, then, 
is an idea, 

(3) Putting these two facts together, we get the formula of Formula of 
association : ab-bc. My lake-idea contains the elements a^ b ; association. 
my picture-idea the elements bj c. The sensation of blue is con- 
nected both with a and with c. Hence when I have the percep- 
tion or idea ab^ the connection of b with c tends to persist, and 

the lake reminds me of the picture. 

(4) In the older psychologies we read of various ^kinds' of Forms of 
association: association by contrast (^ giant ' suggests ^ dwarf), association. 
by similarity (^ Dickens ' suggests ' Thackeray '), by contiguity 

(^sea' suggests ^ ships,' because the two are seen together), by 
cause and effect (the riven oak-tree suggests the lightning that 
struck it), by means and end (the idea of keeping our clothes 
unspoilt suggests the taking of an umbrella with us when we go 
out), and so on. It is clear, however, from what has just been 
said, that these are not ' kinds ' of association, — there is only 
one kind, — but merely forms of it, arranged for convenience 
under certain heads. Every one of the instances given can be 
brought under the formula ab-bc ; the working of the law is the 
same in each case. We may classify photographs as blue prints 
and carbon prints and silver prints and platinotypes, as helio- 
types and collotypes and stannotypes ; but the principle of pho- 
tography, the fundamental law, is the same for all. 

(5) Notice that the ab of the formula ab-bc may be a Perception 
perception^ though we always speak of the association of ideas. ^.^^ associa- 
It may be the perceived, seen lake that suggests the picture-idea. 
Similarly, some (though not all) of the elements in the be of the 



132 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

formula may be perceived. When a man whose memory is of 
the visual and organic types is reminded of a past experience by 
some present perception, the be of the association consists in 
part of organic sensations actually set up in the body at the 
moment of recall, — consists, i.e.^ of a perception. 

§ 55. Simultaneous Association. — We saw, in the 
last chapter, that pure perception is very rare in the 
adult mind. Most of our perceptions are mixed ; 
consist partly of outside and partly of inside sensa- 
tions. To such a length has the mixture of percep- 
tion and idea been carried that it is scarcely possible, 
in some cases, to imagine with any vividness what the 
original process of perceiving was. We can hardly 
realise now what the perceptions of place on the skin, 
of distance in space and of rhythm were in their first 
formation ; our way of perceiving them is a short cut, 
a jump at meaning, with most of the steps that our 
forefathers took left out. 
Simuitane- The assimilations and symbolic perceptions of our 

own minds are put together by way of simultaneous 
association, A material object flashes one of its 
aspects into consciousness in the shape of a sensation. 
This sensation has fixed habits of connection with 
other, central sensations. Hence when it arises, 
they necessarily arise with it. Doubtless, if we knew 
the truth, they come some small fraction of a second 
after it ; but the interval is so short as to be altogether 
unnoticeable. In practical experience, when the sen- 
sation comes, it comes with a bevy of inside sensations 
clustered about it. 

Suppose that you are strolling along a country road, and 
suddenly hear a rumbling noise. You know at once that it 
is coming from behind you, and that it is the noise of a 



ous associa- 
tion. 



§ 55- Simultaneous Association 133 

carriage. You do not turn ; but in a few moments, when 
the noise has reached a certain degree of loudness, you step 
to the path to make way. 

Now sounds do not possess the attribute of extent, and The localisa. 
so cannot give rise, directly, to space perceptions. Never- ^^^^^ 
theless, you seem here to be placing the noise, and placing 
it accurately, by a direct perception of its distance and 
direction. What is the explanation? 

The fact is that, when the noise takes its place among 
the processes composing your consciousness, it brings with 
it a number of central supplements. If you are eye-minded, 
these are visual ; a picture of the carriage, at a particular 
place upon the road. If you are ear-minded, they are au- 
ditory; the sound of the words, "There's a carriage just 
there, so far behind ! " (In this case, the words must have 
been got from previous visual perceptions ; sight has been 
translated into hearing, into words heard.) If you are 
touch-minded, they are tactual ; perhaps the ' feel ' of the 
same words in your throat, perhaps that of the shrinking 
of the whole body from imagined contact with the carriage. % 
In reality, then, the noise is perceived as coming from a 
particular thing and place only indirectly, by way of simul- 
taneous association. 

Notice how the formula of association is followed in this 
instance. Some aspect, b^ of the rumbling noise ab has been 
present in previous perceptions along with c^ the look of the 
carriage. Having ab now, you necessarily have be also: b is so 
firmly welded to c that when b comes c comes with it. 

The commonest and, perhaps, most important of Verbal asso. 
the inside processes that blend v^ith the outside sen- 
sation in this form of association are ^^r<^-processes. 
The first definite idea that a thing suggests to us is 
generally a word-idea, — the name of the thing. And 
when the name has been associated to the thing, the 
association usually stops ; the fringe of nascent asso- 
ciates of other kinds fades away ; there is no need for 



134 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

their persistence. Words are the common denomina- 
tor of all perceptions and ideas ; so that when we 
have named an object we have classified it, put it in 
its place in our stock of knowledge, set it in harmoni- 
ous relation with our other experiences. When we 
hear a rumbling noise, upon our country walk, a 
single word-associate will be enough to * give us 
our bearings.' * Carriage ' starting up in conscious- 
ness will suggest one line of action ; * thunder ' start- 
ing up, another. The word stands for so liiuch, 
symbolises or means so much, that other associates, 
visual or auditory or tactual, are not required. — Of 
course, the word-idea will itself take on one of these 
three forms, according to our memory-type. And, 
also of course, the word-association is not anything 
primitive or original, but the final stage of a long 
process of development. 

§ 56. Successive Association. — The mixed or sym- 
bolic perception is complete in itself. The nervous 
tendencies of the moment have thrown it up on the 
crest of the attention-wave: it has been poised there 
for a little while : now it falls to the lower level, and 
makes way for another perception or idea. That 
shares the same fate, in its turn ; and so on. 
Successive But every one of the sensations contained in the 

first perception has habits of connection. Hence it 
is natural that the second should not be wholly inde- 
pendent of the first, but should be built up (again 
by simultaneous association) on the basis of a sen- 
sation contained in the first; that the third should 
not be independent of the second, but built up, in 



§ 56. Successive Association 135 

the same way, on some sensation contained in the 
second ; and so forth. And this is the way in which 
ideas do, as a matter of fact, succeed one another 
in consciousness. Whenever we ' let our minds go,' 
give ourselves up to day-dreaming or reverie or the 
influence of our surroundings, — whenever, that is, 
we are passively attentive, — our consciousness con- 
sists of a train of ideas. Each member of the train Train of 
is suggested by some member that goes before it; 
and the suggestion is made by a sensation which is 
common to the two ideas. The train is put together 
by successive association. 

So various are the connections of sensations in the 
adult mind that one may pass, without a break, from 
any given idea to any other given idea, — however 
wide the difference of meaning between the two, — 
using the sensations that are common to two ideas 
as stepping-stones. It is easy to pass from the idea 
of * water' to that of * slate ' ; the sensation ^blue' 
offers a stepping-stone. And by increasing the num- 
ber of steps, we can find a way between ideas as 
different as those of the English civil war of 1642 
and the value of a Roman penny. 

Thomas Hobbes (i 588-1 679), perhaps the greatest of English Instance, 
philosophers, has worked out this instance in his Leviathan 
(ch. iii.). "In a discourse of our present civil war," he writes, 
"what could seem more impertinent {i.e.., less to the point] than 
to ask, as one did, what was the value of a Roman penny ? Yet 
the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thought of 
the war introduced the thought of delivering up the king to his 
enemies ; the thought of that brought in the thought of the de- 
livering up of Christ; and that again the thought of the thirty 
pence, which was the price of that treason. And thence easily 
followed that malicious question : and all this in a moment of 



136 



Idea and the Association of Ideas 



Habit the 
condition of 
association. 



time, — for thought is quick.'' So, by finding the common sen- 
sation, the Unk or stepping-stone between idea and idea, we may 
(to use Hobbes' words) "perceive the way of this wild ranging 
of the mind, and the dependence of one thought upon another." 

A good instance of the train of ideas, held together by suc- 
cessive association, is given by Edgar Allan Poe, in the introduc- 
tion to his story " The Murders in the Rue Morgue." 

Notice how \ht formula of association is repeated in the train 
of ideas. We have the series ab-bc-cd-de . . . ; every pair of 
links in the chain repeating the type ab-bc. 

§ 57. The Physiological Conditions of Association. — 



In spite of the multitudinous connections that exist 
between sensations, it is always some partictdar idea 
that is suggested by, and always some /<^r//j;^/^r group 
of central supplements that clusters around the pres- 
ent perception. How are we to explain this? Why 
should association work just in this one way, and not 
in others t 

Let us put the question more concretely. Why should the 
idea of the English civil war have suggested the delivering up of 
the king, rather than the idea of the Roman civil war of B.C. 
49-45? Why should the name ^Dickens,' a few pages back, 
have suggested • Thackeray ' rather than the story of The 
Wrecker which the authors, Messrs. Stevenson and Osbourne, 
acknowledge in their Epilogue to be fashioned after the Dickens 
pattern ? Why should blue water suggest blue slate rather 
than blue sky or the forget-me-not or the bluebird ? Why 
should the perception of an etched portrait be supplemented in 
one mind by the name of the person portrayed, Descartes, and 
in another by the name of the etcher, Edelinck ? And so on. 

If we are to sum up the physiological conditions 
of association in a single word, that word will be 
habit. Habit may be defined as the tendency of a 
thing to be or do now what it was or did on some 
previous occasion. The law of habit runs all through 
nature. Our old coat is comfortable, because it has 



. § 57- Physiological Conditions of Association 137 

got into the habit of fitting us ; its shape has been 
gradually changed, by wearing, till it fits our body. 
New tools do not work so well as old ; they have not 
yet got the habit of working upon them : use adapts 
them to the materials upon which they are employed. 
The brain, like everything else, is subject to the law. 
When two or three parts of the brain have been 
excited together, in perception, a habit of co-excita- 
tion or joint excitation is set up ; so that if, later on, 
one of the parts is excited alone, the others will be 
involved also, — and involved the more certainly, the 
more habitual the connection has been in percep- 
tion. There is thus an order of association : a 
hundred ideas have associations with the given per- 
ception, but that idea comes up whose connection 
with it is most habitual. 

There are different strata or levels of habit, in the brain. Various 

as there are levels of attention or perception in the mind. !^^^.^^ 

^ ^. habit. 

Deepest seated are the natural tendencies of the nervous 
system, the tendencies that we bring into the world with . 
us ; and the acquired tendencies, the tendencies that are 
drilled into us during early education (§ 32). Next in 
order come the habits that we form in adult life : methods 
of working, ways of looking at things due to social position - 
and the company of friends, standards of dress and be- 
haviour, etc. Most superficial of all are the habits set up 
by recent experience ; habits which will disappear as the 
memory of this experience fades. 

Thus water may suggest slate because I am a ' born geologist ' 
(natural tendency) . The portrait suggests Edelinck because I 
have been brought up in an artistic home, and have constantly 
heard discussions of etchings and engravings in my childhood 
(acquired tendency). Giant suggests dwarf because I have 
gradually formed a standard of human height and size in my 



138 



Idea and the Association of Ideas 



Some habits 
are formed 
at one stroke. 



daily intercourse with other men ; and both giant and dwarf 
depart from this standard. Lastly, Dickens suggests Thackeray 
because I have just been re-reading Vanity Fair, while I have 
not read The Wrecker for some three or four years. 

Most habits are set up slowly, by long-continued repeti- 
tion. Indeed, this idea of repetition, of doing something 
over and over again, seems to be essential to the idea of 
habit : there can be no habit, we should be apt to say, 
unless there is repetition. Nevertheless, some brain habits 
are set up all at once, by a sudden wrench ; just as we 
may give a permanent bend to a fencing-foil by one violent 
lunge. If a dear friend has been drowned on a pleasure 
excursion, it is probable that we shall never think of boat- 
ing parties without thinking also of the chance of drowning : 
the association has become a permanent brain habit, although 
the connection of boating and drowning in our perception 
occurred only once. 



Questions and Exercises 

(i) Work out all the instances of association given in §§ 54-57, 
showing how they fall under the formula ab-bc, 

(2) Try to discover your own memory type or types, by the 
following exercises : 

a. Open your mouth a little, and imagine the words mother^ 

bottle^ trumpet. If you can imagine them easily, with- 
out any inclination to close the mouth, you can think 
in visual or auditory terms ; if you have an irresistible 
tendency to move lips or tongue, your mind is (partly, 
at least) of the tactual type. Notice, in the former 
event, how you do imagine them. 

b. Shut your eyes, and form a mental picture of your break- 

fast table. Can you see all of the table service at 
once? Can you see the things in their right colours? 
Does the picture lie out before you, easily compre- 
hended ; or must you move your eyes with an effort 
from cup to dish, from knife to coifee-pot, in order 
to get a view of the whole? In the latter case, your 
visual memory is mixed with tactual. 



Questions and Exercises 139 

c. Can you recognise your friends directly by the sound of 

their voices? Or, when you hear the voice, do you 
have a mental picture of the approaching figure? 

d. Can you remember musical airs that you have heard only 

once? And, if you remember them, do you hear them 
in your head, or do you ^feel' your throat twitch as 
they are recalled? Can you imagine the sound of a 
note that is higher than the highest you can sing? — 
Determine, from the answers you give, whether your 
type is auditory or mixed auditory and tactual. 

e. What is your method of ' learning by heart ' ? 

f. Can you imagine the tastes of sweet and bitter, without 

any thought of the sweet or bitter substance, and with- 
out any inclination to ^ lick your lips ' or screw your 
tongue out of the way? — Can you imagine the scent 
of violets and the smell of asafoetida, without any 
thought of the flower or the resin? without any ten- 
dency to sniff or to close your nostrils ? 

g. Think of Deerslayer in the hands of the Mingoes. Do 

you simply see the scene, or hear or ^ feel ' the words 
that describe it, — or do you ^ sicken ' to think of it, and 
grow ^ breathless ' with suspense as hope after hope of 
deliverance fails? 

(3) Perform this experiment in class, or in a company of friends. 

Let the experimenter choose a list of words which, as pro- 
nounced, may mean different things : time (thyme), bow 
(beau), mind (verb or substantive), sole (of foot, the fish, 
soul). These he is to read out slowly, each member of 
the audience writing down what he takes the word to 
mean, i.e.^ how it is supplemented in his consciousness by 
centrally aroused sensations. At the end of the reading, 
comparisons of results may be made ; every one referring 
his association to some one of the three levels of habit, 
and reducing it to the formula ab-bc. 

(4) Perform this experiment in the same way. Let the experi- 

menter write some familiar word on a blackboard, — 
^ table' or 'saucer' or ^ion' or what not, — and conceal it 
with his hand or a cloth. At a preconcerted signal he 
shows the word for 2 sec, and then covers it again. 
Each member of the audience writes out the first ten 
ideas suggested by the word seen. 



140 Idea and the Association of Ideas 

The written list of ideas must be worked over very care- 
fully, {a) Write out, by introspection, the precise mate- 
rials (visual, auditory, etc.) of which the ideas are made. 
{p) Show the dependence of each idea on some foregoing 
idea, using the formula ab-bc. {c) Notice that the words 
you have written down are merely indications of the ideas 
you actually had, — signs of, perhaps, very complicated 
processes. And notice that the part of the real idea that 
the word stands for is the part that you attended to, while 
you thought : there was a great mass of idea that you did 
not attend to, did not try to express in the word. Now 
fill out the gaps, putting down all the interstitial processes 
that introspection shows you. 

(5) Suppose yourself to have been present at the punishment of 

Hester Prynne, as Hawthorne describes it in ch. ii. of 
The Scarlet Letter, In how many different ways could 
you remember the event? State what the memory would 
be, in each case. What, do you suppose, was Haw- 
thorne's memory type? Why? 

(6) What is the link or stepping-stone in the following instances 

of successive association? 

abed suggests efg 
Harvard " Yale 
" Baby has swallowed a cent ! " " ^ x-rays 

^' Tom ' " ^ Dick and Harry ' 
a -^ lb -^ 2>^ -^ '" -^ ^'^ " Hamlet 

(7) Is the difference between simultaneous and successive asso- 

ciation a difference of degree or a difference of kind? 

(8) What advantages would there be in having a memory which 

was predominantly verbal ? What disadvantages ? 



References 

James, Textbook^ ch. xvi. 
Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., chs. vii., ix. 
Titchener, Outline^ §§ 52-55, 75,76. 
Wundt, Lectures^ Lects. XIX., XX^ 
Wundt, Outlines^ § 16. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Emotion 

§ 58. Feeling, Emotion and Mood. — Sensations blend 
together to form perceptions and ideas. Perceptions 
and ideas unite, in their turn, to form still more 
complicated processes : assimilations, held together 
by simultaneous association, and trains of ideas, held 
together by successive association. 

When a perception or idea is swamped by affection. Emotion, 
the result is called a feeling. When a group of per- 
ceptions or ideas is swamped by affection, the result 
is an emotion (simultaneous association) or a moodisnc- 
cessive association). So we may write the equation : 

^ . ^ , T- 1- ( Assimilation : Emotion. 

Perception or Idea : FeeJmo^ = -^ ^ . . ^ , ^^1 

^ * i Tram of Ideas : Mood. 

There are two chief differences between the Feeling sim- 
emotion and the simple feeling, (i) The affection emotion? 
in a feeling attaches to a group of bare sensations 
{cf. § 54); the affection in an emotion attaches to a 
group of sensations all of which have already formed 
habits of connection with other sensations. In dif- 
ferent words : the sensation-group in the feeling 
stands for, means, some single object or process of 
the material world ; the sensation-group in the emo- 
tion stands for some group of objects or processes, 
for what we call a ^ situation ' or ' incident ' or 
'event.' Hence the emotion is more complex than 
the feeling. 



142 



Emotion 



Feeling 
weaker than 
emotion. 



Mood. 



Remember that our own body forms part of the ^ materia^! 
world,' in the sense in which we are using this phrase here. 

We ^feel tired' or Miot' or ^thirsty.' Our feeling in these 
cases reflects a single fact of the material world : the relaxation 
of our muscles, the high temperature of the surrounding atmo- 
sphere, the dryness of our throat. But when we ' feel afraid ' our 
emotion reflects a whole situation : the fearful object before us, 
our own helplessness, the impossibility of escape, the pain that 
we shall soon suffer, etc., etc. 

Do not be misled by the phrase ' feel afraid ' into thinking that 
fear is a simple feeling : ^. § 25. 

(2) Since the emotion is a more complex and more 
serious matter than the feeling, the bodily signs of 
emotion will naturally be more evident and more 
pronounced. We shall have the four symptoms of 
§ 26, in an extreme form ; but we shall also have 
new symptoms from other bodily organs or tissues. 
This general disturbance of the bodily functions 
gives rise to a mass of internal sensations which, like 
all of their kind, are strongly affective. So the 
emotion is intensified : the internal sensations blend 
with the ideas called up by the situation, and add 
largely to the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the 
experience. The emotion is stronger \hzxi the feeling. 

We shall discuss these bodily disturbances in detail in § 60. 

A mood is simply an emotion Mong drawn out.' 
The affection is spread over a train of ideas, instead 
of colouring a single group of ideas and organic sensa- 
tions (emotion) or a single cluster of bare sensations 
(feeling). And, since this train is marginal, not focal, 
in the series of consciousnesses tinged by the mood 
(^cf. Fig. 10, p. 75), it follows that the pleasantness or 
unpleasantness of the mood at any given moment is 
much less than that of the corresponding emotion. 



§ 59- How Emotions are Formed 143 

§ 59. How Emotions are Formed. — Our emotions The emotion 

, .^1 T r 1 1 is a complex 

always come upon us with more or less 01 sudden- fgeimg 
ness. The stream of perceptions and ideas is flow- whose core 
ing on at its usual, everyday level, when suddenly we 
find ourselves in a certain situation, or are confronted 
by a certain incident or event, which we cannot but 
attend to. Two things happen, (i) The situation isanassimi- 
or event gives rise, naturally, to a perception ; and 
the perception is supplemented, as perceptions usu- 
ally are, by ideas. Moreover, since we have lapsed 
into a state of passive attention, this complex assimi- 
lation is strongly and vividly felt ; strong affection is 
the counterpart of passive attention. Meantime (2) and which 
we have faced the situation by a bodily attitude; the a mass of 
bodily disturbances, spoken of just now, are running organic sen- 

•' ^ ^ sations. 

their course ; and the original feeling, strong in itself, 
is reinforced by all manner of sensations from the 
internal organs. The emotion reaches its climax in 
the perfect fusion of the two sets of processes, the 
complex feeling and the organic sensations. This 
point passed, it either fades out altogether (as when 
anger * quiets down '), or changes into its opposite 
(as when fear gives place to relief), or subsides into 
the less violent and more lasting mood (as when joy 
becomes a steady cheerfulness). 

An emotion is formed, then, when (i) our current 
train of thought is interrupted by (2) an assimilation, 
which is keenly felt, and which (3) is made still more 
keenly affective by the addition of a mass of organic 
sensations. 

Shakespeare has given us an illustration of the forming of an The emotio% 
emotion (the emotion of chagrin) in King Henry V/II., iii. 2. of chagrin. 



144 



Emotion 



The bodily 
signs of 
emotion : 



(i) the four 
signs of 
affection ; 



(2) disturb- 
ances of 
glands and 
involuntary 
nuscles 



Wolsey is '- moody,' ' discontented,' ^ vex'd,' at the idea of the 
King's marriage with Anne Bullen. His plans are interrupted 
by Henry's infatuation. 

" Anne Bullen ! No ; I'll no Anne Bullens for him . . . 
I know her for 

A spleeny Lutheran ; and not wholesome to 
Our cause "... 

The emotion shows itself in external bodily disturbances : 

" Some strange commotion 
Is in his brain : he bites his lip and starts ; 
Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground, 
Then lays his finger on his temple ; straight 
Swings out into fast gait ; then stops again, 
Strikes his breast hard ; and anon he casts 
His eye against the moon ; in most strange postures 
We have seen him set himself : " 

many of which are the signs of internal bodily disorder, and all 
of which supply sensations to reinforce the central feeling. 

§ 60. The Bodily Expression of Emotion : Trunk and 
Limbs. — We saw in § 26 that there are four bodily 
signs of the presence of affection in consciousness. 
We have now to ask what are the bodily signs of the 
presence of an emotion^ what sort of physiological 
processes are aroused when we confront a situa- 
tion. 

(i) Since emotion is an affective process, the bodily 
signs of joy or grief, anger or fear, will include the 
bodily signs of affection in general. We have 
changes of pulse and breathing, of muscular strength 
and of the volume of the body. And these changes 
are of opposite kinds, according as the emotion is 
pleasant or unpleasant. 

(2) Since, however, the emotion is a more complex 
and more serious matter than the feeling, we shall 
expect to find still further bodily disturbances. We 



§ 6o. Expression of Emotion : Trunk and Limbs 145 

find, as a matter of fact, disturbances of the organs 
of secretion (tear glands, sweat glands, etc.) and of 
the other involuntary muscles besides the heart. 

These disturbances are very marked in the emotion of fear. {cf. Darwin's 
The following account of them is pieced together from the ^^scnption 
description given by Darwin in his classical work The Expres- 
sion of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 

" That the skin is much affected under the sense of great 
fear, we see in the marvellous and inexplicable manner in which 
perspiration immediately exudes from it. This exudation is all 
the more remarkable as the surface is then cold. The hairs also 
on the skin stand erect ; and the superficial muscles shiver. The 
salivary glands act imperfectly ; the mouth becomes dry. As 
fear rises to an extreme pitch, the intestines are affected. The 
secretions of the alimentary canal and of the kidneys are in- 
creased." 

Here we have a disturbance of several glands (sweat glands, 
salivary glands, etc.), and of the involuntary muscles lying just 
beneath the surface of the skin (hair standing on end, shivering 
and goose-flesh). 

(3) Again : the emotion is not so personal and sub- (3) weak- 

. • / c* \ • ^1 r T T. • ened survi- 

jective (5 27, 2) an experience as the leelmg. It arises ^ais of 
only when we are facing a set of circumstances that 
have intruded upon an existing consciousness, when 
we are confronting a situation. Naturally, then, there 
will be some aspects of its bodily manifestation that 
refer to the circumstances, to the situation. The 
bodily changes will show us, not merely that the man 
is strongly affected, but that he is strongly affected 
by some particular incident, in some particular way. 

Light is thrown upon the matter by certain facts 
of biological evolution. In the struggle for existence, 
those animals have survived which took unexpected 
events in the best manner. So it is an ingrained 
habit of the nervous system that leads the deer to 

L 



once 
serviceable 
actions ; 



146 



Emotion 



[Emotion an 
instance of 
fusion.] 



(4) play of 
feature. 



run when it hears the noise of the hounds, the sitting 
bird to crouch down upon the nest at the approach of 
an intruder. Habits of this sort die hard. If we 
men do not run, we do ^ jump ' when we are startled ; 
if we do not crouch down, we do ' wince ' when we 
are afraid. The jump and wince, that is, are bodily 
signs of emotions (alarm, fear): they are relics of 
actions which were of great service to our animal 
ancestors in confronting a situation, and which have 
persisted in man, in weakened form, just by sheer 
force of habit. 

The sensations set up by these bodily disturbances colour 
the whole emotion, very much as overtones colour the note 
of a musical instrument, making it a piano note, a violin note, 
etc. (§ 42). The mass of ideas and sensations is blended 
together to form one mental whole, an emotion ; just as 
noises, tone and overtones blend to form a note. And just 
as the unskilled ear takes a note to be a simple (sensation) 
process, so may unskilled introspection take emotion be a 
single, simple process. 

So important are the organic sensations for emotion that, if 
they happen to appear of themselves, they may easily bring the 
emotion with them. When Deerslayer caught the tomahawk 
hurled at him, ^* his hand was raised above and behind his own 
head, and in the very attitude necessary to return the attack. It 
is not certain" — notice this sentence — "whether the circum- 
stance of finding himself in this menacing posture and armed 
tempted the young man to retaliate, or whether sudden resent- 
ment overcame his forbearance and prudence." Cooper has 
realised the undoubted fact that, given the attitude, the emo- 
tion might come of itself {Deerslayer^ ch. xxvii.)* 

§ 61. The Bodily Expression of Emotion: Face. — 

(4) But, after all, the principal sign of emotion in 
man is the look of his face. Sometimes it is the 
eyes that show emotion ; we open the eyes widely, 



§ 6i. Expression of Emotion: Face 147 

e.g.^ when we are surprised. Sometimes it is eyes 
and nostrils together ; think of the frown and the 
movement of the nostrils in anger. Sometimes, again, 
it is the mouth; the injured man seems to be tasting 
something bitter, the disappointed to be tasting some- 
thing sour, the flattered to be tasting something sweet. 
How are we to account for all these * looks ' t 

The look of anger is finely described in King Henry V., Anger. 

• • • 

m. I : 

" Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; 
Let it pry through the portage of the head 
Like the brass cannon ; let the brow overwhelm it 
As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base 
Swiird with the wild and wasteful ocean. 
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide ; 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
To his full height!" 

Some of them fall under the law of habit that we 
have just discussed. It is useful for the surprised 
animal to have a wide field of view; and for the 
angry animal to have his sight focussed on his adver- 
sary, and to draw deep breaths for the combat. So 
these looks have persisted, in weaker form, as signs 
of human emotion. The others, however, — the sweet 
and sour and bitter expressions, — require a more 
elaborate explanation, which takes us back to the 
primitive days of our race. 

Primitive language is full of what we should call Explanation 
metaphor. Our forefathers could not speak glibly, fea^eT 
as we do, in abstract terms ; when they wanted to primitive 

language 

say that a thing was black they said it was scorched, was meta- 
— when they wanted a word for soul they called it ^ °"^^ 



148 



Emotion 



and eked 
out by gest- 
ure. 



The meta- 
phor has 
been lost ; 
the gesture 
persists. 



breath. So when they needed to tell their comrades 
about the circumstances that had called up an emo- 
tion, they were unable to put the circumstances in 
adequate words ; they gave a partial, metaphorical 
account of what had happened. 

The one thing necessary in a primitive society is 
food ; and primitive metaphors are naturally, to a 
large extent, metaphors from the preparing and ob- 
taining of food, from cooking and hunting. Hence 
the first ideas that came into a man's mind under 
pleasant circumstances might very well have been 
ideas of sweet things, and the first ideas that came 
under unpleasant circumstances, ideas of sour or 
bitter things. Wishing to say that his hunt had 
been successful, he said that it had been sweet ; 
wishing to say that it had been ;unsuccessful, he 
said that it had been sour or bitter. 

Again : primitive language was largely a gesture- 
language. Since the spoken words gave only a par- 
tial account of the event described, they were eked 
out by movements of hand or feature. And fore- 
most among these movements were the movements 
that corresponded to the metaphor. The successful 
hunter actually licked his lips, and seemed to suck 
a sweet morsel ; the unsuccessful drew his lips out 
sideways, as if he were trying to taste as little as 
possible of his sour draught. 

Now we begin to see where the argument is taking 
us. Certain processes in the emotion (in the com- 
plex of sensations, set up by the situation, that forms 
the basis of the vivid feeling) suggest a metaphor, by 
simultaneous association; and the metaphor brings 



§ 6i. Expression of Emotion: Face 149 

a movement with it. As language developes, the 
metaphor is lost : it is no longer necessary. But 
the movement persists. When the emotion comes, 
the movement comes with it. The movement sur- 
vives, partly because of its intrinsic fitness to com- 
municate to others a knowledge of our emotion, and 
partly because gesture cannot change as language 
does. The connection of the metaphor with the feel- 
ing, and the connection of the movement with the 
feeling are, at first, equally strong ; both strong 
enough to last into our civilised life. But the meta- 
phor has been driven away by new words, while 
the gesture has not been driven away by new move- 
ments. Hence when we are feeling hurt we at once 
* look bitter ' ; the gesture comes immediately to ex- 
press our emotion, ^without there being any hint of 
the metaphor. 

The following Table will show the reader, at a glance, how 
the various bodily signs of emotion have been developed, 
and how they are related to one another. 

(i) Change of pulse, breathing, volume and strength. 



\ 



(2) Extension of (i) within the body, due to the greater 

intensity of the emotion : change in secretion and in 
contraction of the involuntary muscles. 

(3) Extension of (i) to the outside of the body, due to the 

need of meeting the situation by the right attitude : 
change in position, movements of limbs and features. 



\ 



(4) Certain sensations in the emotion call up a metaphor, and 
the metaphor calls out movement of features. Then 
the metaphor drops out ; but the play of features re- 
mains associated to the sensation-processes in the 
emotion. 



ISO 



Emotion 



Names of 
emotions are 
of practical, 
not of scien- 
tific impor- 
tance. 



Two groups 
of emotions. 



§ 62. The Classification of the Emotions. — Very 
many attempts have been made to classify the emo- 
tions, to group them in accordance with some prin- 
ciple which should show their genesis and relation- 
ship. No attempt has been altogether successful. 
This is not to be wondered at, however ; for language 
has been shaped by practical needs, not by scientific 
requirements. The emotions that are important in 
everyday life, those set up by important events or 
events that every man is called upon to face in the 
natural course of life, — these emotions have received 
names. But there must be many others, whose prac- 
tical import is less or whose shades of difference are 
so slight as to escape the notice of the ordinary 
observer, that have never been named. Hence any 
list that we may make will, of necessity, be incom- 
plete and badly balanced. 

We can, however, divide the emotions into two 
great groups, according as the situation reflected by 
them is reflected under the aspect of quality or 
under that of time. It may be the circumstances of 
our predicament that affect us, the actual facts of the 
event : then we have a qualitative emotion. Or it 
may be the length of time that the situation lasts, or 
the order in which things happen : then we have a 
temporal emotion. We will take the two groups in 
order. 



Emotions of 
quality. 



§ 63. Qualitative Emotions. — All these emotions 
are either pleasant or unpleasant ; the situation is 
either agreeable or disagreeable. Further : each of 
them has two forms, according as we lay stress upon 



§ 63. Qualitative Emotions 151 

the situation (objective form) or upon our own atti- 
tude to the situation (subjective form), — according, 
that is, as we think more of the facts or more of our- 
selves, who are experiencing the facts. And further : 
each of them may show different degrees of intensity, 
ranging from the violence of passion to the subdued 
calm of the mood. 

We may now proceed, working along these three lines, to 
make out a list of the chief qualitative emotions. The 
names of pleasant emotions are printed in capitals. 

The most general forms of emotion are joy and sorrow. List of qualir 

LIKE and dislike. It will readily be seen that the first pair ^f^^^^ ^"^°" 

tions. 

are more personal, more subjective, than the second; we 
feel joyful or sorrowful, but we like or dislike some event, — 
the conduct of some person, or the appearance of some 
object. 

Like and dislike take on different forms, again, according 
as their object is personal or material. When they refer to 
persons, they become sympathy and antipathy ; when they 
refer to material things, attraction and repulsion. 

We have, then, as our cardinal emotions : 

Subjective : Objective : 

Joy, sorrow Like, dislike 

{of persons) {of things) 

Sympathy, antipathy Attraction, repulsion ; 

and can base our Table on this fourfold foundation. The 
more objective forms are printed in italics. Where there 
are different names for different degrees of intensity of the 
same emotion, the names are given in the order weaker to 
stronger : thus * wretchedness ' is stronger than ^ melan- 
choly.' 

Emotions Moods 

(i) Joy . . . . . . . cheerfulness, hilarity 

Sorrow, ("^''^ • • • • anxiety 

grief } melancholy, wretchedness | Rejection, gloom, de- 
V ( pression 



152 



Emotion 



(2) Like 
Dislike 



( hate 

\ loathing . 



(3) Sympathy (for others) 

friendHness, affection, love . 
Sympathy (for oneself or others) 
( anger ^ wrath . 
\ contempt 
aversion 

chagrin, mortification, ex- 
asperation, rage , 
resentment, baffled anger, 
impotence . 

(4) Attraction, delight 

^ , . ( repumance. horror . ) 

Repulsion \ .. ^ V 

^ ( disgust . . . . ) 



Antipathy < 



content 

annoyance 

discontent 



kindliness 

retaliation 
superiority 
irritability 

sulkiness 

vexation, soreness 
happiness, charm 

dissatisfaction 



Notice that there are more words for unpleasant than for 
pleasant emotions ; so that the Table wears a ragged, unbal- 
anced look. Notice, too, that the words do not all seem to 
fit into the places assigned them ; so that you would your- 
self, perhaps, make out the Table differently. Both these 
facts show that the names for emotions were meant to serve 
only a rough, practical purpose, and that it is impossible to 
arrange them in a strictly scientific way. 

It is a matter of common experience that some men are 
moved by events which leave others unmoved {cf, §§ 24, 
53). Hence language has coined names for what we may 
call ^ moods of indifference.' Indifference to joy and sor- 
row is composure ; to like and dislike, unconcern ; to sym- 
pathy and antipathy, apathy ; to attraction and repulsion, 
insensibility. 

The reader may think it strange that anger is classed under 
sympathy, and so made a pleasant emotion. The anger here 
meant, however, is ^generous anger,' ^righteous indignation'; 
the anger that we feel when we see an animal cruelly treated, 
or believe ourselves to have been unfairly used. In such cases 
we ^feel strong' and breathe deeply; such anger is pleasant. 



§ 64. Temporal Emotions 153 

But anger that is mixed with hate or envy, and anger that is 
checked by the feeling of weakness, by the idea that we cannot 
do anything to prevent the wrong, — such anger is unpleasant. 

We shall say a word upon the question of ^higher' and 
Mower' feelings in § 96. 

§ 64. Temporal Emotions. — The temporal emotions, Emotions of 
like the qualitative, are always either pleasant or un- ™^' 
pleasant. Depending as they do, however, upon the 
course of time, they are constantly tending to pass 
into other and more stable forms. Just as discords, 
in music, are always transitional, and must be 're- 
solved ' upon a concord, so the temporal emotions 
are transient in nature, and must be ' resolved ' upon 
qualitative emotions. Like the latter, again, they 
show differences of intensity, and may be classified 
as objective and subjective. 

It is usual to regard expectation and surprise as the two Expectation 
fundamental temporal emotions. Really, however, these ^"^ surprise, 
terms denote states of consciousness, not emotions. Expec- 
tation is simply an anticipatory attention, — attention to the 
idea of something which is to happen in the future. Sur- 
prise is attention to an idea that is suddenly presented, and 
that differs from the ideas forming the consciousness of the 
moment. — In actual experience, expectation and surprise 
are always either pleasant or unpleasant. Looked at as 
affective processes, they are rightly classed with the emo- 
tions : in that case, however, they are no longer called 
expectation and surprise, but receive other names. In 
themselves, as states of consciousness, they are no more 
emotions than attention is. 

The following Table shows the relations of the temporal emotions 
to one another, and to the abstract states of expectation and surprise. 
It is not a Table of origins : thus, pleased surprise need have no 
antecedent fear or hope; and the fear or HOPE, if it does precede, 
need not itself spring from a hope or fear delayed. The three emo- 
tions are, however, connected in the manner indicated. 



154 



Emotion 



List of tem- 
poral emo- 
tions. 



Hope 



[Expectation] 



Fear 



The order of 
emotive de- 
velopment. 



(fulfilled) (unfulfilled) (delayed) 
Satis- Disappoint- Fear 
FACTION ment 



(fulfilled) (unfulfilled) (delayed) 
Alarm Relief Hope 



[Surprise] 



(suddenly 


(suddenly 


(suddenly 


(suddenly 


fulfilled) 


destroyed) 


destroyed) 


fulfilled) 


Jnpleasant 


Pleased 


Unpleasant 


Pleased 


Surprise 


Surprise 


Surprise 


Surprise 


(becomes 


(becomes 


(becomes 


(becomes 


Alarm) 


Relief) 


Disappointment) 


Satisfaction) 



Satisfaction and disappointment, alarm and relief, are the 
qualitative processes upon which the temporal are ' resolved.' 

Continuing the Table, on the pattern of the list of qualita- 
tive emotions, we have : 

(i) Hope, eager anticipation 

■p ( terror ..... 
( dread 

(2) Satisfaction, a*bundant satisfaction 
Disappointment, despair . 

(3) Surprise \ astonishment, amaze- ) 
Surprise ) ment . . ) 

(4) Relief . . . . . 



sangumeness 

uneasiness 

apprehension 

equableness 

sourness 

wonder 



Alarm 



confidence 
vague discomfort, consternation 



There can be no doubt that the emotions of these Tables 
belong to various stages or strata of mental development. 
It is, however, very difficult to arrange them in the order of 
their first appearance. The earliest emotions are probably 
a vague joy and a vague sorrow ; indefinite hope and fear ; 
and pleasant and unpleasant surprise. These are all seen in 
very young children. Next come, perhaps, anger, special- 
ised fear (fear of something definite), affection (fondness for 
someone or something), etc. The emotions are getting to 
be a little more objective, a little further removed from the 
simpler feeling. At a third level come sympathy (as friend- 
liness), and still more specialised and objective forms of the 
other emotions. 



§ 65. Mixed Feelings 155 

§ 65. Mixed Feelings. — We came to the conclusion Areemotions 
in § 27 (i) that **two opposite affections cannot ever and^ unp^ieas- 
be in consciousness together." The total feeling of a ^ntatthe 

same time? 

given moment must be either pleasant or unpleasant ; 
it cannot be both. Yet we find many references in 
poetry and fiction to 'mixed feelings,' emotions that 
are at once pleasant and unpleasant. When Shake- 
speare makes Desdemona say : 

" Something, sure, of state ... 
Hath puddled his dear spirit ; and, in such cases, 
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things. 
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so; 
For let our finger ache, and it indues 
Our other healthful members ev'n to that sense 
Of pain : " — 

the passage is entirely in agreement with our pre- 
vious statement : Othello is vexed, apparently, by 
state affairs, and consequently speaks harshly to his 
wife, — just as the unpleasantness of a finger-cut 
puts us in a generally uncomfortable and irritable 
frame of mind. On the other hand, Juliet says : 

" Parting is such sweet sorrow 
That I shall say good night till it be morrow " : — 

as if there were such a thing as a joy-sorrow emo- 
tion ; and in King John we have this dialogue between 
Philip and Constance : 

" K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your child. 
Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me. 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, . . . 
Then have I reason to be fond of grief : '' — 

as if, again, there were such a thing as a pleasant 
grief, an emotion that should be at the same time 



answer 



156 Emotion 

pleasurable and unpleasurable. How are we to ac- 
count for this seeming contradiction ? 
Hume's The question of the existence of mixed emotions 

is an old one in psychology. It is raised, e.g., by 
David Hume (1711-1776) — who has been called the 
^*most subtle metaphysician of Great Britain"- — ^in 
his work A Treatise of Hufnan Nature. 

" There may be started," says Hume, " a very curious question 
concerning the contrariety of passions [emotions], which is our 
present subject. 'Tis observable, that where the objects of con- 
trary passions are presented at once, it sometimes happens that 
both the passions exist successively, and by short intervals ; 
sometimes, that they destroy each other, and neither of them 
takes place ; and sometimes that both of them remain united in 
the mind." 

The instance given of a quick alternation of pleas- 
urable and unpleasurable emotion is this : 

" When a man is afflicted for the loss of a law-suit, and joyful 
for the birth of a son, the mind, running from the agreeable to 
the calamitous object, with whatever celerity it may perform this 
motion, can scarcely temper the one aifection with the other." 

That is, there is a see-saw of joy and sorrow, ac- 
cording as the situation confronted is that of the loss 
of the suit or the birth of an heir. As an instance of 
the mutual destruction of emotions, we might sup- 
pose that, of two equally important law-suits, the one 
was lost and the other gained on the same day : the 
balance of joy and sorrow might result in the mood 
of indifferent composure. Lastly, for his instance of 
united contraries Hume has recourse to the temporal 
emotions. Noticing how hope and fear change as 
the ' degree of probability ' of the hoped or feared 
event changes, he writes : '^ The passions of fear and 
hope are mixtures of grief and joy." 



§ 66. Temperament 157 

Hume's statement of the question is entirely cor- which is 

rect. We are often called upon to confront two 

situations, the one of which would of itself arouse 

joy, and the other sorrow. But when this happens 

there are two, not three possibilities. Either the 

emotions cancel each other (the two law-suits), or 

there is a rapid see-saw of the attention between 

the situations (law-suit and birth of son, event hoped 

and event feared). Hume has noticed the difference and partly 

between such emotions as hope and fear, on the one ^ 

hand, and joy and sorrow, on the other: but instead 

of placing them in different groups, as qualitative 

and temporal, has tried to explain the temporal as 

mixtures of opposite qualities. Really, the only sense 

in which we may use the phrase * mixed emotion ' 

is that in which Professor Sully speaks of it, when 

he writes : 

'^ A tangle of agreeable and disagreeable associates results in 
a mixed emotion, in which now the pleasurable, now the painful 
factor is uppermost." 

Juliet is alternately glad and sorry ; sorry to part 
from Romeo, but glad that he is there, as her lover, 
and glad in the thought of seeing him again. Con- 
stance cannot but think of Arthur (passive attention). 
Thinking of him as he was, she is proud and joyous; 
then, as his loss comes home to her, her grief is all 
the more bitter. 

For another instance of mixed emotion, cf. Antony and Cleo- 
patra^ I. ii. 174: "This grief is crowned with consolation." 

§ 66. Temperament. — It is usual to distinguish four The four 
types of affective mental constitution, four ' tempera- m^n^s.^^ 
ments/ Minds of different temperament differ in two 



158 



Emotion 



History of 
the doctrine 
of tempera- 
ments. 



ways : in the rapidity with which thought follows 
thought in the * train of ideas,' and in the strength 
of the affection which colours these thoughts. The 
temperaments are named as follows : 



Quick Thought Slow Thought 



Strong Affection 
Weak Affection 



Choleric 
Sanguine 



Melancholic 
Phlegmatic 



Temperaments 



The history of the doctrine of temperaments is one of 
the most interesting chapters in the history of psychology. 
It was a principal tenet of the old-world physicians — a 
tenet ascribed to the great Hippocrates, the father of medi- 
cine (B.C. 46o-?375) — that the human body contains four 
humours : blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. And 
it was a principal tenet of the physicists that there are 
four elementary qualities of things : wet, dry, hot and cold. 
Another famous physician, Galen (a.d. ? i30-?20o), drew 
up a Table of temperaments on the basis of these four quali- 
ties and four humours, — paying more regard to the former, 
however, than to the latter. In the further progress of 
medicine Galen's list was much simplified, and the humours 
came to the front again ; each humour giving its name to a 
temperament. So we have : 



Mixture of 








Elements 


Humour 


Temperament 




warm-dry 


yellow bile 


choleric 


(Gk. chole.) 


warm-wet 


blood 


sanguine 


(Lat. sanguis.) 


cold-dry 


black bile 


melancholic 


(Gk. me las, black.) 


cold-wet 


phlegm 


phlegmatic 


(Gk. phlegma.) 



The hot is the quick, the cold the slow element ; dryness 
and moisture correspond to strong and weak feeling respec- 
tively. But it was some time, even after the names of the 
temperaments were settled, before they were defined exactly 
as we define them to-day. The melancholic was the first to 
be accurately characterised ; then the choleric was sharply 
differentiated from it; and the sanguine and phlegmatic 
recognised last of all. 



Questions and Exercises 159 

It is but rarely that modern fiction gives us a delineation of 
a pure temperament ; the complexity of modern life has brought 
with it a corresponding complexity of character. At the same 
time, most standard novels show us approximations to pure 
temperaments, especially among the minor figures of the tale. 
Thus in The Newcomes Thackeray has drawn Madame de Florae 
as melancholic, and Fred Bay ham as choleric. Mrs. Hobson 
Newcome is sanguine ; and Rosey, with her five songs and her 
dulness to Warrington's jokes, with her unmoved acceptance of 
her mother's anger and her uncle's death, is a good instance of 
the phlegmatic temperament. 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) Describe eight situations which might give rise to the eight 
cardinal emotions. 

(2) What emotions have you seen shown {a) by babies and 

(J?) by dogs? Why should a young child have but few 
emotions ? 

(3) Professor Wundt, noting that one word is often used to 

designate very different forms of emotion, distinguishes 
six kinds of anger : 
{a) a weak kind, a strong kind, and a kind that is alternately 

weak and strong ; 
(J)) a kind that comes to a head slowly ^ a kind that arises 
very quickly j and a kind that comes in waves, mter- 
7nittently. 
He further says that the bodily signs of anger may be 
those that we have found in pleasurable emotions, those 
that we have found in unpleasurable emotions, or an 
alternation of both sorts. 

Can you think of situations that would call forth all 
these different forms and expressions of anger? Is it 
strictly correct to call the emotion ' anger ' in every case ? 
In which of the cases does the 'anger' differ from the 
anger of § 63 ? 

(4) Fig. 14 gives the facial expression of two opposite emotions, 

as suggested by the natural philosopher and artist Leonardo 
da Vinci (1452-15 19). What are the emotions? Can 
you give any reasons for their being expressed as they 
are? 



i6o Emotion 

(5) Man betrays emotion most readily by movement of the lips. 
How do dogs and horses betray it ? Can you give any 
reason for the difference between the emotional expression 
of these animals and of man ? 





Fig. 14 

(6) How would you explain the following expressions of emotion 

or mood? — 
{a) Sorrow: features are lengthened, ^face falls.' 
{b^ Sulkiness : lips protrude, in Spouting' 
(c) Superiority : upper lip curls, so as to show teeth, in 

^ sneering.' 
(^) Contempt: eyes are half closed. 
{e) Contempt : fingers are snapped. 
(/*) Disgust: nose wrinkles and ^ turns up.' 

(7) One of the old Greek philosophers, Democritus, said that 

the heart was the organ of anger. What facts could have 
led him to take this view ? Are there any phrases in our 
own language that point to a similar way of thinking about 
anger? And about other emotions than anger? [//., 55.] 

References 

C. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and 
Ani7nals. 2d ed., 1890. Esp. pp. 154-185 (on weeping) 
and pp. 207-222 (on laughter). 

James, Textbook^ ch. xxiv. 

A. Mosso, Fear^ 1896. 

Sully, Human Mind, vol. ii., pp. 56-121. 

Titchener, Outline, §§ 57-60. 

Wundt, Lectures, pp. ^y^^-yjli 381-385. 

Wundt, Outlines, §§ 12, 13. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Simpler Forms of Action 

§ 67. Movement and Action. — When we were dis- 
cussing attention and emotion, we found it necessary 
to describe (§§ 34, 60, 61) certain bodily movements 
which accompany or ^express' them. We were in- 
terested in these movements not for their own sake, 
but for the sake of what they signified or expressed. 
We found that, seeing a particular set of movements, 
we could say: ^'That man is attentive!" — and, see- 
ing another set: **That man is afraid!" We were 
arguing, so to speak, from outside inwards ; from 
movement to the mental processes that movement 
stands for. 

We have now to look at movement from a different Movement 
point of view, to ask what movement is, on its psy- ^hoi^^kiai 
chological side. We must examine it for its own sake, phenome- 
working from inside outwards, — that is, trying to 
find out the psychological conditions under which 
movement in general takes place. For it is clear 
that movement is of the very highest importance in 
mental life. We are constantly ' doing ' something ; 
hoping, fearing, wishing, avoiding, resolving to do 
something, and feeling glad, sorry, satisfied, relieved 
that the something is done. What, now, is the prob- 
lem that ^ doing ' things sets to psychology '^. 

Let us take two instances of bodily movement, 
and see how they help us to answer this question. 
M 161 



non. 



1 62 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



The move- 
ments of 
swimming. 



Heart-beat. 



Action. 



(i) Suppose that you have recently learned to swim, 
and that you wish to test your endurance in the 
water by swimming from one boat or dock to 
another. You hesitate a little ; but finally resolve 
to make the trial, and dive in. As you swim, you 
'feel' the resistance of the water; you exert your- 
self, and grow tired ; the water seems to get thicker 
and thicker, and your body to become heavier and 
heavier, as you near the goal. — In this case, the 
movement has a double claim upon the psychologist. 
In the first place, it has a mental antecedent ; the idea 
of the distance, the hesitation, the final resolve, — all 
these complex mental processes precede it : they are 
the mental circumstances under which it occurs, its 
'conscious conditions.' In the second place, it has 
mental concomitants ; the perception of resistance 
and the tiredness come at the same time with the 
moving. (2) Now consider, by way of contrast, the 
movements of your heart. They go on of their own 
accord, without any antecedent resolve ; and they go 
on for the most part unnoticed, without any con- 
comitant sensations. You can perceive them by pur- 
posely attending to them ; and you perceive them 
when you are angry or * out of breath ' ; but under 
ordinary circumstances they are not * felt ' at all. 

A movement that has mental antecedents (con- 
scious conditions) and mental concomitants is termed 
an action ; and the problem which * doing things ' 
sets to psychology is that of tracing out the various 
sets of processes which can serve as the conscious 
condition of the various forms of action. Movements 
of the second kind (of heart, lungs, blood, intestines, 



,' I 



§ 68. Conscious Condition of Primitive Action 163 

etc.) are termed * movements' simply. They have 
no place in psychology as movements, for their own 
sake : we have to take account of them only when 
(i) they are the bodily conditions of organic sensa- 
tions (§ 21), or when (2) they 'express' particular 
mental processes (feeling, emotion). Looked at as 
movements, there is nothing about them for psy- 
chology to lay hold of ; we either do not perceive 
them at all, or merely perceive the sensations aroused 
by them while they are actually performed. 

§ 68. The Conscious Condition of Primitive Action. — Attention the 

-ni ^i,* r i.- • ^1. • J r pnme condi- 

The one thing necessary tor action, m the mmd 01 J-o^ of 
the primitive organism, was attention. When the ani- action, 
mal's attention was caught by an object, no matter 
what the object might be, it moved : moved towards, 
if the object affected it pleasantly; moved fro^n, if 
the object were unpleasant. In other words : every 
time that a complete consciousness was formed, — 
a consciousness, that is, consisting of (i) an idea 
(2) attended to and therefore (3) felt, — there was 
corresponding movement of the whole body. 

We call this consciousness a ' complete consciousness ' 
because it contains both of the mental elements, sensation 
and affection, and contains them in the form of concrete 
processes (idea and feeling) running their course in the 
state of attention. All the requirements of a full conscious- 
ness are thus met. In the interval between two attentions, 
the primitive consciousness was composed of a vague blur 
of what we must term organic sensations, with no reference 
to the world outside of the body. 

There are three points to observe here. 

Notice (i) that action affords a good illustration of the state- Mind and 
ment made in § 38 that " mind developes in close interaction with i^ature. 



164 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



The function 
of a nervous 
system. 



Why psy- 
chology 
came late to 
the study of 
attention. 



nature."" There is a physical or natural side to the phenomenon 
that we are considering from the psychological side. When a 
full consciousness is formed (psychology), then the animal moves 
(physics or biology). And the appropriateness of its response 
to different stimuli is an expression of the law that all perceptions 
must possess a meaning. 

(2) We can now understand how it is that all nervous systems 
are constructed on the same plan. The function of a primitive 
nervous system is simply to take in and send out : what comes in 
as impression goes out into movement. The function of a more 
highly developed nervous system is to take in, to work over, and 
then to send out : what comes in as impression still goes out into 
movement, but does not go out immediately ; the incoming excita- 
tion is worked over at the centre of the system, and sent out per- 
haps into movement of the whole body, perhaps into movement of 
a limb or part of a limb, perhaps into movement of the internal 
bodily organs, of heart and blood, etc. The principle of the 
nervous system is the same, but its working has grown more 
complicated. A famous neurologist, Dr. Hughlings Jackson, 
sums up the functions of the brain by saying : '^ All nervous 
centres, from the lowest to the very highest, are made up of 
nothing else than nervous arrangements representing impressions 
and movements. I do not see of what other materials the brain 
can be made." 

(3) We can understand,^ also, how it comes about that in the 
older works upon psychology attention is not discussed, as a 
state of consciousness that has special features and special con- 
ditions, but is simply taken for granted. We may be sure that 
no object of the world outside the body would be perceived by 
the primitive organism that was not at the same time felt (at- 
tended to) . The natural or normal perception is the perception 
given in the state of attention ; indifferent perceptions, percep- 
tions of objects not attended to, are a later growth, the result of 
the multiplication of sense-organs and of the consequent com- 
plexity of consciousness. So we ourselves, when we think of a 
sensation — ^ blue ' or ^ sweet ' — naturally think of it as it is when 
we attend to it. The older school of psychology had not passed 
beyond this ' natural ^ attitude to sensations and perceptions, and 
therefore took attention for granted. 

Do not suppose that the primitive consciousness was split up, 
as clearly and sharply as ours is, into a sensation-side and an 



§ 6g, Impulse : the Idea of Own Movement 165 

affection-side. We, looking back over the history of mind, can 
see that sensation and affection were both represented in the 
very earliest mind ; but none the less that mind was a one-tissue 
mind (§ 48), a mind whose processes were neither sensations 
nor affections, but rudimentary sensation-affections. 

The conscious conditions of a particular action are 
usually summed up in one word, — the word motive. Motive is 
Thus the motive to the primitive action that we have "^^ ^ up o 
just been considering would be the felt (attended to) 
perception of an object. It is evident, from this single 
illustration, that every motive may be looked at from 
two different points of view : stress may be laid upon 
its sense-side (the perception) or upon its affective 
side. When we are thinking of the former, we speak 
of the inducement to act ; when we are thinking of inducement 
the latter, the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the 
inducement, we speak of the incentive to act. The incentive, 
whole motive, the sum of conscious conditions, is 
made up of an inducement and an incentive, present 
in consciousness together. Thus a thief is induced 
to steal by the sight of a loaf ; the incentive to the 
theft is the unpleasant feeling of hunger. 

The typical motive to human action, the motive from 
which all others may be derived, is called impulse. We Impulse, 
proceed now to discuss the impulse in detail, and shall 
then treat of three degenerate forms of impulsive action, — 
instinctive action, ideomotor action and reflex movement. 

§ 69. Impulse : The Idea of Own Movement. — Sup- Formation of 
pose that an organism has moved, under the condi- 



one s own 



tion described in the foregoing Section, the condition movement. 
of attention or (for we saw that the two expressions 
were in this case identical) of a full consciousness. 
When the movement is over, the animal will have 



1 66 The Simpler Forms of Action 

had a new perception, and so have laid the founda- 
tions of a new idea, — the perception or idea of its 
own movement. When next it attends, this idea of 
own movement will be simultaneously associated to 
the perception of the object attended to : the animal 
will attend not merely to the object, but to the object 
plus the idea of own movement. And as the asso- 
ciation of perception-of-object and idea-of-movement 
is strengthened by every instance of actual move- 
ment, — every time that the animal moves, it experi- 
ences anew the perception of own movement, — this 
idea comes to play a very important part in the mass 
of idea and feeling that makes up the conscious con- 
dition of movement in general. 
Function of For remember what the very earliest movement 
was : just a rough, unregulated movement towards 
or away from an object. It is a far cry from move- 
ments of this sort to the precise, definite, accurate 
movements that we make ; such movements as those 
of picking up a pin, or counting out money, or writ- 
ing, or using knife and fork. Now the idea of pre- 
vious movement gives the organism a pattern or copy 
of movement, — a copy to be closely followed, if it be 
the idea of a satisfactory movement, and a pattern to 
be avoided, if the original movement proved unsatis- 
factory. We may say, then, that when the idea of 
past movement comes to be contained in the con- 
scious conditions of action, action is on its way to 
be precise and accurate. 

Composition If we sum up the conscious conditions of action at this 
of motive. stage of mental development, we have : 

{a) Perception of object ; 



§ /O- Impulse: the Idea of Result 167 

{h) Idea of own movement, connected with the percep- 
tion by way of simultaneous association ; 

(/) Affection accompanying the perception and idea. 
Since the complex which the affection colours is a group of 
processes held together by simultaneous association, the 
whole sum of conditions will be of the nature of an emotion 
(§ 58). This means that there will be a fourth factor in the 
list : 

(d^ Organic sensations, set up by the bodily expression 
of the affection. 

We will work out these conditions, in two actual cases. The Instances of 
one shall be a case of impulse towards^ the other a case of im- motives, 
pulse away fro77i. 

(i) Suppose that an animal perceives, by sight or smell, the 
near presence oi food. It moves impulsively towards the food, 
and takes it. What is inducement here, and what incentive ? 

The inducement is made up of {a) the food-perception, which 
is at once reinforced by (f) the idea of own movement towards 
the food-stuff and (^) the organic sensations accompanying the 
pleasant incentive. This incentive is made up of (f) the pleas- 
antness of the food-perception plus the pleasantness of the move- 
ment-idea. 

(2) Suppose that the animal perceives, by sight or hearing, 
the near presence of an enemy. It moves impulsively away from 
the source of danger. 

The inducement is made up of {a) the enemy-perception, which 
is at once supplemented by (f) the idea of own movement away 
from the danger and {d) the organic sensations accompanying 
the unpleasant incentive. This unpleasantness is {c) that of the 
danger-perception, plus the unpleasantness of the idea of move- 
ment {i.e.^ of the idea of shrinking, giving way, being balked or 
interrupted) . 

§70. Impulse: The Idea of Result. — We spoke Formation of 
just now of ' satisfactory ' and ' unsatisfactory ' move- ^.^3^1^ ^^ 
ments. A movement is satisfactory when it leads to niovement. 
a satisfactory result^ and unsatisfactory when it ends 
unsatisfactorily. No action can be performed without 



1 68 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



Function of 
this idea. 



Instances. 



accomplishing or failing to accomplish something; 
and no result can follow an action without leaving 
an idea of itself in the agent's mind, which may come 
up again when the next occasion for action arises. 
So we have a further complication of the impulse- 
motive : the perception-side of it (the inducement) is 
enriched by the idea of the result of movement, and 
the affective side (the incentive) by the pleasure which 
this idea brings. 

The presence of an idea of result in the motive 
helps the organism to make its movements precise 
and accurate, — hastens the work already begun by 
the idea of own movement. A particular movement- 
idea is acted out, and a good result follows. The 
accomplishing of the result directs attention back 
again to the movement-idea which led to it; and 
this idea is remembered, becomes a pattern which 
may be copied later. On the other hand, if a move- 
ment-idea is acted out and a bad result follows, atten- 
tion is directed to that movement-idea, which becomes 
unpleasant ; and the result is that, in future, that 
particular movement will be shunned. So the idea 
of result acts as a sort of overseer, weeding out the 
useless movement-ideas, and planting firmly in the 
animal's nervous system the physical arrangements 
for the performance of useful movements, move- 
ments that take it straight to the desired goal. 

Our two instances are now a little more complicated, (i) The 
inducement to take the food is made up of food-perception, idea 
of movement and ideas of taste and satiety (the result of taking 
it) ; the incentive is made up of the pleasure of food-perception, 
the pleasure of the idea of movement and the pleasure of the 
ideas of taste and satiety. (2) The inducement to flee the dan- 



§ 70. Impulse: The Idea of Result 169 

ger is made up of the object-perception, the idea of movement 
away and the idea of escape from bodily injury (the result of 
running) ; the incentive is the resultant of the unpleasantness 
of object-perception, idea of injury, and movement-idea, and the 
pleasantness of idea of escape : it is, therefore, a pleasantness or 
an unpleasantness, according to circumstances. 

If, then, one were asked to define impulse, one Definition of 
would say: * Impulse is a motive to action, made up ^"^p^^^- 
of three sense-processes (perception of object, idea 
of own movement, idea of result of movement). 
This complex, held together by simultaneous asso- 
ciation, is given in the state of passive attention, and 
is therefore accompanied by affection.' 

The complete impulse, the impulse with threefold induce- Impulse and 
ment, is still more like an emotion than is the simpler set of ^"^o^^^"* 
movement conditions which we discussed in § 69. Hence 
we can readily understand Professor Wundt's statement 
that " every impulse is at the same time emotion," and 
the corresponding statement of Dr. Lehmann, a Danish 
psychologist who has made a special study of the affective 
processes, that " every emotion is at the same time impulse." 
It is not that emotion and impulse are identical (in that case 
there would be no reason for the use of the two words), but that 
each of them overlaps the other. We have just had a par- 
allel instance. At first, as we saw in § dZ, attention means 
action ; or, as Professor Sully puts it : ^^ The primitive form 
of activity is at once, according to the aspect in which we 
view it, both attention and conscious muscular action.'^ 
Now, however, it is only attention to a particular set of 
ideas that means action ; so that we have to discuss atten- 
tion and action in separate Chapters. At first, in the same 
way, there was no difference between impulse and emotion ; 
" the universal animal impulses are indubitably the earliest 
forms of emotion." Now the two are so far distinct that 
we have to treat of them separately ; but they still have 
much in common. 



170 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



There are two chief differences between the emotion and 
the impulse, (i) The impulse has about it more effort than 
the emotion. The effort comes from the idea of own move- 
ment (cf, § 34). And (2) the bodily expression of impulse 
is a particular movement (reaching out the hand, running 
away) ; that of emotion is a diffused movement, a disturb- 
ance of the internal organs and of the whole muscular 
system. 



Degenera- 
tion of the 
impulse : 



loss of idea 
of own move- 
ment; 



§ 71. Psychomotor Action. — Just as the impulse was 
bound to arise from the bare, primitive form of 
action, — just as the inducement to action, that is, 
was bound to grow from simple object-perception to 
a mixture of this with the ideas of own movement 
and of result, — so is it bound to degenerate, to fall 
back again into simpler forms. And the degenera- 
tion is very useful. Suppose that we were obliged 
to attend to this threefold group of perception and 
ideas every time that we performed an action, every 
time that we cut a slice of bread or buttoned our 
coat ! There would be an immense loss of time and 
energy. And we have now gone far enough into 
psychology to know that, in the sphere of mind, time 
and energy are not wasted ; wherever a * short cut ' 
can be taken, it is followed. 

So the impulse degenerates. In the first place, 
the idea of own movement drops out of the motive. 
That idea is valuable so long as the movement is 
being learned, being" modelled after the pattern; it 
ceases to be valuable when the movement has been 
learned, and can be performed without thought of 
the copy. The 'copy, the movement-idea, then dis- 
appears ; it no longer means anything to the organ- 



.1 



§ 72. Reflex Movement 171 

ism, — and an idea owes its life to meaning something 
(§ 38). Secondly, the idea of result becomes ab- 
sorbed, so to speak, in the perception of the object : 
when we see the knife, we see it as a bread-cutter, 
and when we take hold of a coat-button, we grasp it reduction of 
as a coat-buttoner. The idea of result comes to be result; 
merely a sort of tag, stuck on to the perception. 
And thirdly, while these two changes are taking 
place, the perception is becoming indifferent; so lossofaffec- 
far are we from attending to it passively, as we did 
originally, that we fail to attend to it at all. 

At this stage we have an action whose conscious Sensorimotor 

,. . . . I'll . r 01^ ideomotor 

condition is a perception, which has a mere tag or action, 
idea of result associated to it, and which is not felt 
(not attended to). Movement occurs directly on the 
occurrence of the perception. Such action is termed 
sensorimotor or ideomotor action. 

Professor James gives the following instance of a sensorimotor 
action : '•'• I sit at table after dinner and find myself from time to 
time taking nuts or raisins out of the dish and eating them. My 
dinner properly is over, and in the heat of the conversation I am 
hardly aware of what I do ; but the perception of the fruit [object] 
and the fleeting notion that I may eat it [result of movement] 
seem fatally to bring the act about." 

§ 72. Reflex Movement. — We have only to carry Total dis- 
the development that leads from impulsive to psycho- of?^p^^ise^ 
motor action one step farther, and we come to reflex as motive to 

action. 

movement. The motive to psychomotor action is a 
decayed and indifferent impulse. To reflex move- 
ment there is no motive at all. The impulse has died 
out altogether ; there is no perception of object, no 
idea of result, however dim and fleeting. The move- 
ment has become, by long habit, ingrained in the 



172 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



From the 
impulse to 
the reflex. 



The involun- 
tary bodily 
movements. 



make-up of the nervous system ; so that when a 
stimulus is presented, movement follows, without the 
arousal of any mental process ; the ingoing excitation 
is turned back, reflected outwards, in the form of 
movement, — the whole series of events taking place 
quite automatically and unconsciously. 

A good illustration of the passage from impulsive action 
to reflex movement is given by the closing of the eyelids, 
winking. You may wink impulsively ; perceiving the offen- 
sive object, having a distinct idea of the movement, and 
realising the result to be attained (the freeing of the eye 
from dust, an insect^ etc.). Or you may wink inattentively; 
vaguely perceiving the insect, and still more vaguely ideating 
the result of the closure of the eye. This is psychomotor 
action. Or, lastly, the wink may be a reflex ; you may wink 
without seeing the insect, or thinking at all of the movement 
or its result, — you may wink, that is, without in the least 
knowing that the eyelids have moved. As one reads a book, 
one often winks to cleanse the surface of the eyeball : but 
there is absolutely no knowledge of the movement. 

The most reflex reflexes, those that are farthest removed from 
the impulse, are the internal movements of heart, blood, intestines, 
etc., that we spoke of in § 67. It is very difficult for us to think 
of the movement of the blood through the blood-vessels, or of 
the digestive movements of the alimentary canal, as having once 
depended upon conscious conditions, upon attention and ideas ; 
and indeed, it would be absurd to think of them in their present 
form as possibly springing from any motive. But nevertheless 
they are descendants of the primitive action of § 68 ; they have 
been slowly differentiated out of the whole-body movements of 
early organisms ; so that their ancestors, if we may so call them, 
really had conscious conditions and really did spring from motives. 

We said in § 67 that these movements come into psychology 
only indirectly, as the conditions of sensation or the expressions 
of affective processes. We must here add to this that they come 
into psychology historically . They are now physiological ; but 
at one period of their history they had psychological conditions. 



§ 73- Instinctive Action 173 

On reflex movements in general see H.^ 287, 299; F.^ 144 ff., 
698 ff. 

§ 73. Instinctive Action. — There are some move- instinctive 
ments, movements of a complicated sort, which must movement. 
be made at least once by every member of an animal 
species in every generation. Caterpillars must spin 
their cocoon ; birds build their nest ; flies seek out the 
fitting place to lay their eggs. These movements, 
like the reflexes, are touched off mechanically; no 
motive is necessary. They have sometimes been 
described as * compound reflexes.' 

But instinctive movement differs from reflex move- 
ment in the fact that the moving is pleasant (attended 
to). The reflex has neither mental antecedents nor 
mental concomitants; the instinctive movement has 
well-marked mental concomitants. To quote Pro- 
fessor James again : 

^'' Every step of every instinct shines with its own sufficient 
light, and seems at the moment the only eternally right and 
proper thing to do. It is done for its own sake exclusively. 
What voluptuous thrill may not shake a fly, when she at last dis- 
covers the one particular leaf, or carrion, or bit of dung, that out 
of all the world can stimulate her ovipositor to its discharge? 
Does not the discharge then seem to her the only fitting thing? 
And need she care or know anything about the future maggot 
and its food ? " 

The reasons both for the likenesses and for the Explanation 
differences between reflex and instinctive movements ° instinctive 

movement. 

are not far to seek. The instinctive movements are 
being continually repeated, whether by the individual 
animal or by the species; hence, like the reflexes, 
they become stereotyped by habit in the nervous sys- 
tem of the species. On the other hand, they are too 



174 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



Instinctive 
action : the 
instinct as 
motive. 



Composition 
of instinct. 



important to be left entirely without control. The 
motive, the impulse, has been lost, and with it the 
controlling ideas of own movement and of result : this 
loss is inevitable, if the movements are to be stereo- 
typed. The motive is replaced, however, by the 
mental concomitants, the organic sensations aroused 
by moving. Their pleasantness keeps the movemxcnt 
going, and holds it in the right channels. 

So far, the development has been downhill : from 
impulsive action, with its elaborate motive and con- 
comitant sensations, to instinctive movement, which 
has lost its motive and whose concomitant sensations 
are therefore made a great deal of. Now the devel- 
opment takes an upward turn. Suppose that an 
animal that has once performed an instinctive move- 
ment (say, nest-building) has to repeat it at some 
future time. Plainly, the second movement will have 
a motive ; there will be an idea of own movement, an 
idea of result and an idea (if not a perception) of 
object. Instinctive movement has grown into in- 
stinctive action, an action whose conscious conditions 
differ but very little from those of impulsive action. 
And the instinct itself, the conscious condition of the 
action, will become clearer and more definite with 
every repetition. 

If we divide the instinct into inducement and incentive, 
we get the following list of processes : 

Inducement. — Idea of object, idea of own movement, 
idea of result, idea of organic sensations which will be aroused 
by moving. 

Incentive. — Pleasantness of all these ideas, the pleasant- 
ness of the anticipated organic sensations being much the 
strongest. 



1 



§74- Physiology and Psychology of Movement 175 

Instinct, like impulse, evidently bears a marked resem- instinct and 
blance to emotion. The ideas in it are held together by ^"^o^^°"- 
simultaneous association ; the complex is passively attended 
to ; and the organic sensations are prominent in the whole. 
Hence we find Dr. Lehmann saying : *' Every emotion is at 
the same time instinct " ; and Professor James declaring that 
"every instinct is an impulse," and that " every object that 
excites an instinct excites an emotion as well." Again, of 
course, the processes are not identical, but run into and cut 
across each other in actual experience. 

§ 74. The Physiology and the Psychology of Move- The simplest 

.is not neces- 

ment. — When the physiologist sets to work to explain sariiy the 
the mechanism of movement, to find out what sort earhestform 

of move- 

of bodily disturbance is necessary to make a muscle ment. 
contract, he naturally begins by examining the sim- 
plest form of movement, the reflex. Having found 
the conditions of this, he seeks to account for 
more complex movements, — sensorimotor and ideo- 
motor action, impulsive action, etc. Working in this 
way, from the reflex upwards, he is very apt to 
think that the reflex, the simplest form of move- 
ment, is therefore the earliest form ; and that psycho- 
motor and impulsive action have grown out of it, 
one complication being added after another. Nor 
have the physiologists stood alone in this opinion. 
Not a few psychologists, studying movement from 
the same point of view, have fallen into the same 
error. 

But how do we know that it is an error .'^ Have 
we not been taking things for granted, in this Chap- 
ter, — asserting that the. earliest movements have 
conscious conditions, and that unmotived movements 
are later growths, rather than proving our assertions } 



1/6 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



Reflex move- 
ment is later 
than impul- 
sive action. 



Yes : and we must, therefore, now that our survey 
is ended for the time being, pause to set down the 
arguments which justify our position. They are as 
follows. 

(i) Reflex and instinctive movements are purposive in 
character ; that is, are adapted to some particular purpose, 
cut to fit certain circumstances (ZT., 288). Think of the 
appropriateness of the winking reflex for the removal of 
impurities from the surface of the eyeball ! Primitive move- 
ment, on the contrary, would be vague, indefinite, inappro- 
priate. Hence the reflex must be a late development, not 
a primitive movement-form. 

(2) Many of the reflex movements that express emotion 
can be understood only on the hypothesis that they are 
degenerate descendants of impulsive (or even more compli- 
cated) actions. Think, e.g.^ of the jump and wince of § 60. 

(3) Impulsive action may be reduced to reflex movement 
in the course of the individual life. (This fact, of which 
we have all had experience^ will be discussed in § 106). 
On the other hand, we never find in individual experience 
that a reflex movement passes into impulsive action. 

(4) The results of animal psychology (§ 119) accord well 
with the theory that the impulse precedes the reflex in men- 
tal evolution. ^- 

Some investigators (A. Binet, La vie psychique des micro- 
organismes, 1891) declare that the movements of single-celled 
organisms are all actions ; the creatures are selective, single out 
their food from the rest of their surroundings, — evince passive 
attention. Others (M. Verworn, Psycho physiol. Protistenstu- 
dien, 1889) think that most of these actions are reflexes, only a 
few being dimly conscious, rudimentary impulsive actions. We 
can accept either statement : the single-celled organism is primi- 
tive, but has an immense series of ancestors behind it. It may, 
then, have retained the primitive type of action (Binet), or it 
may, in certain movements, have taken the downward path 
towards the reflex (Verworn). It has recently been maintained 
by A. Bethe {P/luger's Archiv, 1898) that ants and bees are 
mere automata, — reflex machines. If they are, we cannot but 
infer from the delicacy and nicety of their movements that they 
have developed into, not remained stationary at, the reflex stage. 



§75- Classification of Impulses and Instincts 177 



These are the chief reasons for making motived 
movement the first kind of movement that appeared 
in the world of Hfe ; and the only reason for a con- 
trary opinion seems to be the belief that what is 
physiologically simplest in the human body (the 
reflex) must be the earliest type of movement in 
general. That belief can hardly be adhered to, in 
face of the opposing arguments. 

The physiological difference between motived action and reflex 
movement is shown, after a greatly simplified fashion, in Fig. 15. 
In motived action, the excitation travels from 
the sensory cell s (a cell, say, in the retina or 
the skin) straight up to c^ the brain-cortex. 
Here it is worked over, and passes out in the 
direction of the arrows to m^ the ending of the 
nerve-fibre in a muscle. The motive corresponds 
to the commotion at c^ the cortical excitation. In 
reflex movement, the excitation travels from s 
across r to 711 ; the whole process has been 
delegated by the cortex to lower nerve-centres ; 
there is no mental antecedent or concomitant of 11 
movement. 

The cortical arc scrn represents an arrange- 
ment that is older, in the history of the race, than 
the short cut, the reflex arc srjn. Fig. 15 

§ 75. The Classification of Impulses and Instincts. 




- Classifica- 

The attempts to classify human impulses and instincts impJsesand 
have met with even less success than the attempts instincts is 

neither 

to classify emotions. There is oftentimes no clear possible 
line of division, in actual experience, between im- 
pulsive, psychomotor and instinctive action. And the 
kinship of instinct, impulse and emotion is so close 
that one and the same process may be interpreted 
as any of the three, according to the point of view 
of the psychologist who is writing about it. It is 

N 



1/8 The Simpler Forms of Action 

no wonder, then, that one author says : '' Instinctive 
acts in man are few in number," and another: "No 
other mammal, not even the monkey, ^hows so large 
a list." Everything depends on the point of view, 
and on the use of terms to which the point of view 
leads. 

Let us take some illustrations. Fear is an emotion; yet 
there are instinctive fears (fear of the dark, of strange 
things and people, etc.). Almost all the names for objec- 
tive emotions — like, dislike, sympathy, antipathy, attraction, 
repulsion — are also used to denote fundamental impulses. 
Who can say precisely at what time bread-cutting and coat- 
buttoning passed from the impulsive to the sensorimotor 
stage ? Or take this case : I am out for a walk with a friend ; 
see something glittering by the roadside, — a pin, it may be ; 
stoop, and pick it up. Is this sensorimotor action, or the 
outcropping of the acquisitive instinct? 

nor impor- Fortunately, the enumeration of impulses and in- 

stincts is not a very important matter. The key to 
the psychology of action lies not in the making out 
of a complete list of motives, but in the right under- 
standing of the composition of motives, and more 
especially of the impulse. Impulse is the cardinal 
process in the action-consciousness. If the reader 
has a thorough grasp of the principles upon which 
it is formed, and can trace the development of the 
three degenerate forms from it, he will easily steer 
his way through the conflicting statements of the dif- 
ferent psychologies. And — what is more important 
— the shif tings and changings that the processes 
undergo in practical experience will cease to be 
puzzling. Here, as everywhere, a sound theory 
simplifies the facts. 



tant. 



§ ^6, The Simple Reaction 179 

§ 76. The Simple Reaction. — The psychology of 
action can be investigated in the laboratory : indeed, 
* reaction experiments/ as they are called, are in many 
ways of great psychological importance. They are 
performed as follows. 

It is agreed between the experimenter and the Reaction- 
' reactor ' that at a signal given by the former a 
definite movement shall be made by the latter. To 
get action at its lowest terms, i.e.^ to keep all the 
conditions of the experiment as simple as possible, 
the signal chosen is of such a kind as to arouse a 
single sensation (of noise, light, etc.), and the move- 
ment is that, e.g.^ of a single finger. The instru- 
ments used are so constructed that the time elapsing 
between the signal and the movement can be meas- 
ured: it is called the 'reaction-time.' 

We saw in § 1 5 that attention to the matter in Direction oi 

1 i • 4.* 1 . r 1 • *. 4-' xr attention in 

hand is essential to successiul introspection. If, the reaction 
then, the reaction experiment is to give us intro- experiment, 
spective knowledge about action, the reactor must 
be attentive. But here a difficulty arises. What 
shall he attend to } Shall he attend predominantly 
to the signal (the stimulus), or to the movement, or 
shall he try to attend to both at once, to grasp the 
whole experiment } Each of the three directions of 
attention is possible ; and to each of them there cor- 
responds a special form of reaction. 

(i) Attention on the Stimulus: the 'Sensorial^ Reac- Sensorial, 
tion. — The reactor enters upon the experiment with two 
ideas in mind : the idea of the result of his action (getting 
the experiment over, or learning something about the psy- 
chology of action, or doing something that comes in the 



i8o 



The Simpler Forms of Action 



muscular 



and central 
reactions. 



day's work) and the idea of the stimulus. The stimulus is 
given ; the idea of it is replaced by its perception (per- 
ception of object) ; the two processes are at once supple- 
mented by the idea of own movement : movement follows. 

This, the ^ sensorial ' reaction, is plainly an artificial impul- 
sive action. Moreover, it cannot degenerate to any appreci- 
able extent. In course of practice, the idea of result and the 
idea of own movement are much reduced, tending to become 
mere tags attached to the perception of object. But this com- 
plex must, by the terms of the experiment, be attended to ; 
the action can never pass over into the sensorimotor form. 

The average duration of the sensorial reaction is .270 sec, 
when the stimulus is a flash of light; .225 sec, when it is 
a noise; and .210 sec, when it is a sharp pressure. The 
differences are due, physiologically, to differences (i) in the 
mode of excitation of the peripheral organs, and (2) in 
the readiness of associative connection between these organs 
and the reacting member. 

(2) Attention on the Movement ; ^Muscular'' Reaction, — 
The reactor has two ideas in mind : the idea of the result 
of his action and the idea of own movement. The stimulus 
is given ; the perception of object associates to these two 
ideas : movement follows^. 

This, the ^ muscular ' reaction, seems also, at first sight, to 
be an artificial impulsive action. There is a difference, how- 
ever. Attention to the coming movement means bodily prep- 
aration for the making of that movement ; the hand tingles 
to move. For the time being, there is a sort of reflex con- 
nection between the sense-organ to which the stimulus will 
appeal and the reacting finger. Hence the action is not 
impulsive ; it approaches the reflex type. On the other 
hand, it is not a reflex or a sensorimotor action, because 
attention to the movement-idea is presupposed. 

The average duration of the muscular reaction is .180 sec. 
to light, .120 sec to sound, and .110 sec. to sharp pressure. 

(3) Attention Diffused: the 'Central' Reaction, — The 
reactor has three ideas in mind : those of result, of own 



§ 76. The Simple Reaction i8i 

movement and of object. The giving of the signal changes 
the idea of object into its perception : movement follows. 

This, the ' central ' reaction, evidently stands, for psychol- 
ogy, midway between the other two. And its duration lies 
midway between their durations. 

The three forms of reaction are all important. Psychoiogi- 

r^-i • 1 r 1 • • 1 • i-' cal impor- 

The sensorial form, an unchangmg impulsive action, tanceofthe 
allows the reactor to examine the impulse introspec- reaction 

experiment. 

tively, under standard conditions. It also serves as 
the point of departure for the investigation of motives 
to action that are more complex than the impulse 
(see Ch. XIII.). The muscular form, taken alter- 
nately v^ith the sensorial, gives practice in the con- 
trol of attention : the experimenter, noting the 
duration of the reactions, can tell whether the re- 
actor is able to shift from the idea of signal to the 
idea of movement, and vice versa^ or whether in 
each experiment he vacillates between the two : 
i,e.^ can determine how much practice is needed for 
the attention to travel from the active to the sec- 
ondarily passive stage. Again : if the attention is 
permitted to lapse from the movement-idea, the 
reaction comes to be very like a true reflex move- 
ment ; so that the passage from impulse to reflex can 
be traced by the experimenter. The central form is 
interesting as the normal, obvious form of reaction ; 
the reactor, if left to himself, reacts as a rule with 
diffused attention. Moreover, if the diffused atten- 
tion is permitted to lapse, the central reaction passes 
over into an artificial sensorimotor action ; so that the 
passage can be traced to this from the impulse, — 
and traced under more natural conditions than would 



1 82 The Simpler Forms of Action 

be the case if attention were permitted to lapse from 
the object-perception of the sensorial form. 

The associa- The sensorial reaction has been employed in the study of 
tion reaction, successive association, of the putting together of the train of 
ideas (§ 56). The reactor is told that he is to move his 
finger, not when he has perceived the signal, but when 
some idea (or series of two or more ideas) has followed 
that perception by way of successive association. The 
experimenter, knowing the associated ideas, and knowing 
the length of time that each association took, obtains an 
insight into the reactor's mental constitution : sees whether 
his mind is addicted to abstract thoughts, or moves most 
easily among concrete things ; whether it is a mind that 
generalises, rises to more general ideas than that conveyed 
by the stimulus, or a mind that particularises, descends 
from the given perception to ideas that come under it 
as instances, etc., etc. 
Reaction and The central reaction, again, has been employed in the 
memory- study of memory-type (§ 50), on the theory that its dura- 
tion will approach that of the sensorial or muscular form, 
according as the reactor belongs to one type or another. 
When he reacts to light, e.g.^ his reaction-time will approach 
the sensorial, it is said, if his ideas are visual, and the mus- 
cular, if they are tactual. So far, however, the results 
obtained on this theory are of doubtful significance. 

Questions and Exercises 

r . The Reaction Experiment. — The instrument represented in 
Fig. 16 is Professor Sanford's reaction-timer. It is constructed 
as follows. 

Two brass pendulum-bobs, a and ^', are suspended by inelastic 
threads from the bar, b. The threads (the one of which is red, 
and the other white) are knotted through two holes bored in the 
bar, pass through similar borings in the bobs, and are held fast 
by the two set-screws, c and c' . They are prevented from spread- 
ing by being laid in four grooves cut in the upper right-hand 
surface of the bar. The pendulums can be lengthened and 



Qtiestioits and Exercises 



183 




Fig. 16 



shortened at pleasure, by clamping the set-screws at different 

parts of the threads. — On the right of the cast-iron base, d^ are 

placed two keys, e and e' . The 

lips of the keys, on the side 

towards the bobs, close so far 

as to grip tightly the shaft of a 

lio^ht brass-wire hook. One of 

these hooks, /", lies in the Figure 

upon the base of the instrument. 

Counter-hooks are fastened to the 

pendulum-bobs. Pressure upon 

the buttons of the keys uncloses 

the lips, so that the brass hooks 

are released. — It will be noticed 

that the keys stand at different 

levels upon the base, and that the 

pendulums are of correspondingly 

different lengths. 

The instrument is tested in this way. See that the bobs 
hang evenly in the middle of their threads. Place the hooks 
between the lips of the keys, and hook the bobs into them by the 
counter-hooks. Now (i) release the nearer, longer pendulum by 
pressing the button of the lower key. Count the swings of the 
pendulum (beginning from zero, not from ' one ') by help of a 
stop-watch. Note how many full, i.e.^ back-and-forth swings 
occur in i min. Divide the time by the number of swings, and 
you have the duration of one total swing. We will suppose that 
this is 0.8 sec. ; that the pendulum returns to the position from 
which it started in 0.8 sec. (2) Release the farther, shorter pen- 
dulum, by pressing the button of the upper key. Take the time 
of swing in the same way. We will suppose that it is 0.78 sec. 
It is clear now that the long pendulum makes 39 full swings 
while the short one makes 40 ; that the shorter gains a full swing 
on the longer in every 40 of its swings. The unit of the instru- 
ment is, therefore, 0.8 sec. ^ 40, or one-fiftieth of a second. 
That is to say : the long pendulum loses, the short gains, 
0.02 sec. in every full swing. (3) Test this result by letting the 
two pendulums swing together, and counting the number of 
swings of the long pendulum that elapse between coincidence 
and coincidence of the four threads, i.e.^ between the times of 
their lying in one and the same plane. If your previous counting 



184 The Simpler Forms of Action 

was correct, the coincidences should come at the 39th, 78th, 
117th, etc., swings. 

(i) We are now in a position to take a reaction-time. Let it 
be the time of reaction to a sound stimulus. The base of the 
instrument is clamped firmly to the table. The pendulums are 
hooked to the keys, and the hooks adjusted till the four threads 
lie in the same plane. The experimenter places himself squarely 
before the apparatus, so that he can accurately gauge the position 
of the threads. The subject sits with closed eyes, the forefinger 
of the right hand laid lightly upon the button of the higher key. 
The experimenter says " Now ! " and, after an interval of 
1.5 — 2 sec, raps sharply upon the button of the lower key, thus 
releasing the long pendulum. On hearing the sound, the subject 
presses the button of his key, and releases the short pendulum. 
The experimenter counts the swings of the long pendulum, from 
the time of its starting to the time of the first coincidence of the 
four threads. If the two pendulums are together at the sixth 
swing, the reaction-time is 6 x 0.02 sec, or 0.12 sec. (muscular 
reaction) ; if they are together at the eleventh, the time is 0.22 
sec. (sensorial reaction). It may sometimes happen that the 
two pendulums seem to be in exact coincidence during two 
swings, say, the tenth and the eleventh : in that event the time 
must be counted as 10.5 x 0.02 sec, or 0.21 sec But this will 
not happen after the experimenter has had a little practice in 
observation of the threads. 

(2) If the reaction is reaction to pressure stimulus, let the 
subject lay the forefinger of his right hand upon the upper, and 
the forefinger of his left hand upon the lower key. The experi- 
menter then presses upon the latter finger (stimulus is given), 
and the subject reacts by pressing down his own right=hand 
finger, as before. 

(3) If the reaction is to sight, the subject keeps his eyes open, 
and presses the button of the upper key when he sees the experi- 
menter's finger move in the act of pressing that of the lower. 
Or the experiment may be made by help of the ' side wire,' fur- 
nished with the instrument, as follows. 

A piece of stout wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. 17 a, is 
attached to the upper part of the key, e just above the large screw 
which forms the axis of the key. When the lips of the key are 
closed, the upper end of the wire inclines inwards, toward the 
pendulums. When the button is pressed, the wire moves to a 



Questions and Exercises 



185 





Fig. 17 



vertical position. The wire is slit at its upper end, to take a 
small disc of white cardboard. Between the keys, e and e' ^ must 
be set up a screen of black card, having a circular opening 
which allows the white cardboard to be seen when the wire 
stands vertically, but not 
when the lips of the key I 

are closed. The opening 
should be somewhat smaller ot 

than the white disc. — The 
subject fixes his eyes upon 
this opening, before the ex- 
periment begins, and reacts 
when he sees the white card 
appear behind it. This 
happens, as we said, when 
the experimenter presses the 
button of e. To avoid the 
click produced by the strik- 
ing of the button of the key upon the platform below, it is well 
to pad the latter with cotton-wool, and to encase the metal parts 
and the pad with a piece of rubber tubing (Fig. 17^). 

(4) In the association reaction (sound stimulus), the experi- 
menter calls out the stimulus word as he opens the lower key. 
Suppose that a ^ whole' is to be called, and some ^part' to be 
associated to it by the subject. The experimenter calls out 
" Fish! " — pressing the button of the lower key at the moment he 
utters the word ; the subject presses his key when he has thought 
of ^ fin ' or ^ tail.' In such cases it may happen that the long pen- 
dulum makes a full swing before the short one starts. This must 
be noted by the experimenter, and the 0.8 sec. added on to the 
time (taken in 0.02 sec. units) during which the two pendulums 
are swinging together. — In visual experiments, printed words 
replace the white disc held by the side wire. The reaction- 
movement is made after association to the word stimulus. 

The following points may be noticed : 

(a) The subject should write out an introspective account of 
each experiment, stating whether or not he has obeyed orders as 
regards direction of the attention, whether or not his reaction 
was disturbed by chance noises, etc., etc. 

{b) Not more than 15 or 20 experiments should be made at a 
single sitting. Otherwise the subject becomes fatigued. 



1 86 The Simpler Forms of Action 

{c) Practice is not complete until the average difference between 
the separate reaction-times and the average time of the series has 
fallen as low as one-tenth of the average time. Thus the series 
.255, .275, .290, .265, .300, is a good visual sensorial series. The 
average time is .277, and the average difference between this and 
the separate times .014, — not much more than one-twentieth of 
.277. On the other hand, the series .200, .330, .210, .265, .380, 
is worthless. The average is again .277 ; but the average differ- 
ence between this and the separate times is .062, — an amount that 
lies between one-fourth and one-fifth of .277. Practice is here 
incomplete. 

2. Define instinctive action. 

3. On p. 171 an instance of sensorimotor action is given. 
Suppose that you have intended to do something, but have for- 
gotten about it ; that later in the day the idea of what you had 
meant to do recurs to you ; and that you jump up at once to do 
it. This would be an instance of ideomotor action ; object-per- 
ception has been replaced by object-idea. — Give instances of 
both forms of psychomotor action from your own experience. 

4. Make a Table, in the form of a genealogical tree, of the 
various kinds of action discussed in this Chapter. Give an exact 
account of the composition of the motive in every case. 

5. Name some of the principal reflexes. 

6. Rudimentary organisms do not possess a ' brain ' with a 
^cortex.' How do you reconcile this fact with the statements 
made above in regard to Fig. 15? 

References 

James, Textbook^ chs,. xxiii.,xxv. ; pp. 415-428, 120-124, 126-128. 

Sully, Human Mind, vol. ii., ch. xvii. 

Titchener, Outline, §§ 61-67, 92? 93? 98. 

Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XV., XVIII., XXVI., XXVII., XXVIII. 

Wundt, Outlines, § 14. 



CHAPTER X 

Memory and Imagination 

§ "jj. The Two Kinds of Memory and Imagination. — Some com- 
The reader will remember that we drew a distinction, formed in 
in Chapter V., between passive and active attention, ^^e state of 

^ ^ passive, 

In passive attention, some one idea dominates con- others in 

• 1 ,. 1 .1 •. . .. that of active 

sciousness with an unquestioned authority ; in active attention, 
attention, there is a struggle of several ideas for the 
supremacy (§§ 31, 32). 

All the complex processes that we have examined 
so far — the assimilation, the train of ideas, the emo- 
tion, the impulsive action — are processes that take 
shape in the state of passive attention. There are 
other, and very important processes, which can take 
shape only in the state of active attention. Thought 
and creative imagination, the sentiment of beauty or \ 

of truth, deliberate and purposed action, — these are 
wholly foreign to a mind that has not risen above 
the level of primary passive attention ; they are the 
crown and flower of mental evolution. It is natural, 
then, that we devote our final Chapters to their 
consideration. 

Our business with the passive side of mind, how- 'Memory* 

rr^-, , . and ' imagi- 

ever, is not quite over. There are certain processes, nation* may 
composed chiefly of perceptions and ideas, and occur- ^^ ^^^^^^ 

^ '' ^ ^ active or 

ring in passive as well as in active form, that we passive, 
have not yet touched upon: the processes which are 
grouped under the headings of memory and imagina- 

187 



1 88 Memory and Imagmation 

tion. We could not treat of passive memory and 
passive imagination in Chapter VII., although both 
of them are put together by way of simultaneous 
association, because both are made up in part of 
a peculiar mood, and moods could not be discussed 
until we reached Chapter VIII. Comprehension of 
the laws of mental connection would be a much 
easier matter than it is if one could take in three 
chapters — sensation, affection, attention ; or associa- 
tion, emotion, impulsive action — at a single reading. 
In the present Chapter, then, we shall describe 
both the passive and the active forms of memory and 
imagination. 

§ 78. Recognition and Memory : Passive. — Most of 
our perceptions and ideas are familiar to us. We 
have seen that they are mental short cuts to know- 
ledge of the outside world (§§ 41, 50), — symbols 
rather than copies of things, tags of meaning rather 
than the complex processes that they were in the 
minds of our remote ancestors; we have seen, i.e., 
that they are familiar in the objective sense, in the 
sense that they have long been employed and are 
easily handled. But they are also familiar in the 
subjective sense ; we realise, when they enter a con- 
sciousness, that they are familiar; they have upon 
them a mark or sign which, as it were, says to us : 
*^This is your old friend, the perception that you had 
then, or the idea that you gained at such and such 
a time.'' 
Passive When a perception or group of perceptions has 

and memory, this mark of familiarity upon it, we speak of recog- 



§ 79- ^^^ Mark of Familiarity 189 

nising someone or something. When it is an idea 
or group of ideas that bears the mark, we speak of 
remembering someone or something. " I've been 
here before!" ** Fm sure I know that face!" 
**Why, who'd have thought of seeing yoiif — ■ 
these phrases are all expressions of recognition ; 
the perception is familiar. *' Oh yes ! he came here 
the year the so-and-so's were married ; " '' It was in 
1870, in October, — I read about it at the same time 
that news came of the capitulation of Metz ; " '' No ! 
it's the male bird that has the yellow ; the female is 
white" — these are expressions of memory; the idea 
is familiar. 

The first thing that we have to do, then, in investi- The mark of 

T • . r 1 . familiarity. 

gatmg passive recognition and memory, is to find out 
what precisely the ' familiarity mark ' is ; of what 
processes it consists, and how it becomes attached 
to perceptions and ideas. 

What we said in § 50 about memory-types may have led No idea is 

the reader to think that some, if not all ideas are intrinsi- ^"^^i^sically 

a memory- 
cally memory-ideas ; that when we have an idea, we ipso idea. 

facto have a memory. This is not the case. No idea is 
a memory in its own right ; it must have the memory label 
affixed to it. We speak of ' memory-types ' rather than 
of ^ idea-types ' simply because memory is the use, so to 
say, for which ideas are intended ; it is in being remembered 
that ideas get their practical value. But the phrase ' idea- 
types ' would be really more correct : since a ' memory ' is 
a marked idea, a mind whose ideas are of a certain type 
naturally * remembers ' in ideas of that type. 



means 



§ 79. The Mark of Familiarity. — When you recog- Familiarity 
nise a figure in the street, two things happen. In 
the first place, the perception is supplemented by a 



igo 



Me7nory and Imagination 



association 



and the 
mood of 
confidence. 



number of ideas : perhaps the name of the person 
comes up, perhaps the circumstances under which 
you last saw him, perhaps some business that you 
have or have had with him, perhaps a question that 
you wish to ask or a story that you have heard about 
him. There is no before and after in the experience ; 
as soon as you see your acquaintance, these ideas are 
present in consciousness : it is a case of simultaneous 
association. True, the simultaneous association may 
form the starting-point for a successive association, 
for a train of ideas ; but in the recognition itself the 
association is simultaneous. In the second place, 
you are thrown into an agreeable mood, the mood 
of ease or confidence, of ' at-homeness ' ; you feel 
familiarly towards the figure. On the other hand, 
the passers-by whom you do not know, do not recog- 
nise, are perceived merely ; they have no power, as 
personalities, to awaken associated ideas in your 
mind : and you feel indifferently towards them ; 
they do not affect or * concern ' you. Of course, a 
* striking ' face or costume may compel the passive 
attention (§ 31); but such perception is not recog- 
nition. 

The same thing holds of memory. When you 
remember something, whether it is a scene of your 
childhood or the date of Julius Caesar's assassi- 
nation, the idea of that something is supplemented 
at once by a crowd of other ideas ; and, as these 
ideas cluster round it, the at-home feeling comes too. 

These two groups of processes, then, — the associ- 
ated ideas and the mood of confidence, — together 
make up the mark of familiarity. They attach to a 



§ 79- '^^^ Mark of Familiarity 191 

perception, in every case of recognition ; they attach 
to an idea, in every instance of memory. 

There are three points to notice, in regard to the familiarity Recognition 
mark, (i) The mood of at-homeness or confidence is a weak- means relief 
ened form of the emotion of relief. Fear of strange things 
and strange people is instinctive with man (§ 75) ; and it is 
a survival of fear unfulfilled, of relief, that we experience when 
we recognise. (2) The mood is, however, a very degenerate (but a greatly 
form of this emotion. The ^ body ' of every complete emotion weakened 
is a vivid and complex feeling (§ 59). In the mood of at- ,. .. 
homeness there is no trace at all of this central feeling, no 
attention to a ^ situation ' ; the current train of ideas is not 
interrupted ; the mood consists solely of a pleasant affection and 
of the organic sensations set up by an easy and careless bodily 
attitude. (3) It follows from (i) that every recognition is in- and is inher- 
herently pleasant. Oftentimes, it is true, the pleasantness of the ^^^ly pleas- 
at-home mood is outweighed by the unpleasantness of the associ- ^^^ ^* 
ated ideas : we may recognise a person whom we particularly 
want to avoid. But this does not impair the previous state- 
ment : in itself, recognition is pleasurable. 

It is exceedingly important to understand the Psychoiogi- 
psychology of recognition, for the reason that recog- \^^^ 
nition brings out, perhaps even more clearly than 
perception (§ 38), the part that meaning plays in the 
shaping of mind. A perception is a group of 
sensations, and yet is not accurately described when 
these sensations are accurately described. For it 
is formed under stress of biological necessity, — at 
the bidding of external nature ; it must mean some 
natural object, if it is to hold together; and, unless 
we state this, its description is incomplete. Recog- 
nition illustrates the same fact from a different point 
of view : it shows us that, when a complex process 
holds together, it has a meaning. 

For consider. We say that certain associated ideas 



192 Memory and Imagination 

and a certain mood make a * perception ' a * recog- 
nised perception.' **Very well," you may reply: 
'' but how do we recognise the ideas and the mood ? 
They cannot help us to recognise anything, unless 
they are themselves recognised." The ansvv^er to the 
objection is this. The grouping of associated ideas 
and mood round a perception means that that per- 
ception has occurred in our experience on some pre- 
vious occasion. But the * recognition ' of a perception 
means this, too. ' Recognition,' then, simply sums up 
in a single word * grouping of associated ideas and 
presence of mood.' These processes do not them- 
selves need recognition : they are recognition. They 
would fall apart, unless they meant something ; and 
their meaning — a meaning implanted in them by 
external nature — is : ** You are safe : this thing has 
been here before." 

Recognitions § 80. The Degrees of Recognition and of Memory. — 

r^s ^ff^Tn ^^ have now answered our first question ; we know 
definiteness. what the ' mark of familiarity ' is. But while all re- 
cognitions and memories are alike in general outline, 
so to speak, — all being instances of simultaneous 
association, all containing the same mood, and all 
having the same practical meaning, — they differ very 
greatly in definiteness. We ^aid in the last Section, 
that the perception (in recognition) or the idea (in 
memory) is supplemented by *a number,' 'a crowd' 
of other ideas. This is true in cases of complete or 
definite recognition and memory ; it is not true in 
all cases. We find every degree of definiteness, from 
a vague and shadowy acquaintance, with perhaps a 



§ 8i, Recognition and Memory: Active 193 

single associated idea, to clear and perfect knowledge, 
with a whole consciousness-full of associates. 

Suppose that a number of different people are shown a photo- Instances, 
graph of the same painting. They would all recognise it as a 
photograph, and probably, if they looked at all closely at it, as 
taken from a painting. But beyond this point their recognitions 
might show all degrees of definiteness. One might say: "I 
don't know it : it is evidently a sacred picture, but that's all I 
can say." Another : " It must be a Raphael ; but I don't know 
which." Another : " It's one of the famous Raphael Madonnas ; 
it seems familiar to me, and I'm sure I've seen an account of it 
somewhere, but I can't remember now where it was." Another : 
" Oh yes ! It's the Sistine Madonna, — Raphael's." Another : 
" Of course : that's the Sistine, — stands in the little room in the 
Dresden gallery, where the Holbeins are." Another will know 
this, and will be able to give in addition the complete colour- 
scheme of the picture ; and another will be acquainted with its 
history, — and so on. Here we have various stages of recogni- 
tion, rising from great indefiniteness to great definiteness. The 
principle is the same throughout. 

So with memory. Ask a number of people who read the same 
book at about the same time what they remember of it. Some 
will have " forgotten the plot : but it was a good story." Others 
will tell you, in a sketchy way, what w^ere the chief incidents in 
the tale. Others will recall it in greater detail, and will give you 
certain scenes quite vividly. Others, again, will remember ^ali 
about ' the book : what the story is, and why it was written, and 
what effect it had on the public, and what the author's life- 
history was, and so on. 

The less definite the associates, the less strong is 
the mood of confidence. But some associate — if it 
is only the bare thought ** I know!" — and some 
trace of the mood are present in our dimmest mem- 
ories and blankest recognitions. 

§81. Recognition and Memory : Active. — The pro- 
cesses of remembering and recognising are always 
the same, and always occur in the state of passive 



194 Memory and Imagination 

attention. But they may be preceded by a state of 
active attention ; we may not recognise a thing till 
after we have actively attended to a number of per- 
ceptions, — and we may not recollect a name till after 
we have actively attended to a long series of ideas, 
v^hatis In other words, the state of passive attention in 

'^ctiTe'^ which they occur may be that of secondary passive 
recognition attention. Cascs of this kind show us recognition 

and memory. 

and memory in their ' active ' forms. 

Instances. Suppose that you are trying to find your way along a 

little-used forest path, which you have travelled only once 
or twice before. You come to a doubtful place : the tree 
looks right, but you are not quite sure : there ought to be a 
big stone a few yards on, and then a swampy patch. If the 
stone and the bit of marsh show themselves, you ' recognise ' 
the path : active lapses into passive attention. If they do 
not, you go back to the tree, and scrutinise the ground 
again. On a familiar path, the associates and the mood of 
confidence are present from the beginning. — Recognition 
is made up of just the same processes in both cases; but in 
the first case it is preceded by active attention. 

Or suppose that you are trying to think of the name of 
someone whose face is familiar to you. You " know his 
name as well as you know your own " ; but the word obsti- 
nately refuses to come. You now attend actively to a num- 
ber of ideas, some one of which you hope may be strongly 
enough associated to the required name to bring it up : you 
think of the scenes in which you have met the possessor of 
the name, of his usual occupations, of his friends' names, — 
you run through the alphabet, recalling the names that begin 
with the different letters, and so on. At last you get the 
name, or get some idea that brings the name with it : the 
name is supplemented by all sorts of ideas (instances of its 
use, times and places), and the mood of confidence arises 
with a touch of real relief in its composition. — Again, the 



§ 82. Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness 195 

memory is precisely like passive memory, except that a stage 
of active attention has preceded it. 

The term ' memory ' is sometimes employed in a narrow sense 
to mean ^ passive memory,^ and active memory is expressed by 
the word ^ recollection.' 

§ 82. The Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness. 

— Since all our memories are formed by way of 
simultaneous association, the law of memory will be 
the same as the law of association : all the connec- 
tions set up in a consciousness tend to persist (§ 54). 
Fortunately, however, in memory as in association, 
only part of these connections do persist in actual 
fact. In association, it will be remembered, some one 
sensation in the complex perception or idea suggests 
another perception or idea ; it is not the whole idea 
that calls up another, but only some particular side 
or aspect of it (§ 57). If every sensation in every 
idea were equally ready to call up associates, con- 
sciousness w^ould be a mazy tangle of processes, and 
definite meaning would be impossible. 

So it is with memory. If we are to remember Forgetfui- 

rii A c j_ ^11 xr ness a condi- 

useiully, we must forget a great deal. If we remem- tionofthe 
bered every incident of every day, — at what time usefulness of 

memory. 

we got up, what letters we received, what we had 
to eat and drink, what exercise we took, what work 
we did, — we should be lost in the wealth of our own 
ideas ; we * should not see the wood for the trees.' 

The course of association can be explained, as The law of 
we saw, by the law of habit: the more habitual the 
co-excitation in the brain, the more certain the asso- 
ciation in consciousness. Remembering and forget- 
ting may be explained in precisely the same way. 



196 



Memory and Imagination 



The different 
levels of 
habit. 



Habit means 
past atten- 
tion. 



Cramming, 



Habitual associates are remembered; accidental asso- 
ciates, forgotten. 

The deepest-seated habits of the brain are its natural and 
acquired tendencies (§ 57). Hence we remember what 
fits in with our mental constitution, and forget what does 
not. Then there are the habits set up by a sudden wrench. 
We remember vivid, strong, unexpected experiences, and 
forget the rest. Thirdly, there are the social and profes- 
sional habits of adult life. We remember the details of our 
business or of our science, so that the outsider is often 
surprised at the richness of a technical memory, — not 
thinking how poor that memory is for other things. Lastly, 
there are the temporary habits set up by recent events. 
We remember recent occurrences, for a little time, just 
because they are recent ; every dint in the brain, so to say, 
remains for a while, till it is obliterated by the multitude 
of still newer impressions. 

Putting all this together with what we said in § 57, we 
cannot resist the conclusion that whej-e habit is, there atten- 
tion has been. Just as reflex movement arises by way of 
attentive (impulsive) action, so is the machinery of memory 
and association set up by way of foregone attention. An 
idea that fits in with our mental constitution is an idea 
that we attend to ; a vivid, strong, unexpected idea is also 
attended to ; the details of our profession are the things 
that interest us. Though we remember for a few hours the 
time that we got up in the morning, the time-idea is doomed 
to forgetfulness when the first flush of newness is past, simply 
because we did not attend to it. Let us get up unusually 
early, and we remember the fact for weeks. — This is how 
it comes about that the idea attended to is more valuable, 
more suggestive than other ideas (§ 30). The ideas that 
come to mind in the most fanciful day-dream, in the me- 
chanical and inattentive flow of consciousness, would not 
come unless they had, at some time, been attended to. 

Notice the light that this Section throws on the subject of 



§ 83. The 'Three Stages' in Remembering 197 

cramming. The student who crams for an examination trusts 
to recency of experience to carry him through ; he hopes that a 
certain amount of his reading will cling to him for just the day 
or two that he needs it. Hence cramming is bad, if you want 
to remember, good, if you want to forget, what you have learned. 
Professor James emphasises the bad side. '^ Things learned thus 
in a few hours, on one occasion, for one purpose," he says, 
^- cannot possibly have formed many associations with other 
things in the mind. Speedy oblivion is the almost inevitable 
fate of all that is committed to memory in this simple way."" 
The late Professor Jevons, one of the best known of English 
logicians, looked at the matter from the other point of view. 
It is, he says, " a popular but wholly erroneous notion that what 
boys learn at school and college should be useful knowledge 
indelibly impressed upon the mind, so as to stay there all their 
lives." Cramming '"^ is the rapid acquisition of a series of facts, 
the vigorous getting up of a case, in order to exhibit well-trained 
powers of comprehension." And this, he insists, is a fitting for 
the business of later life. 

§ 83. The ^ Three Stages' in Remembering. — Psy- 
chologists often speak of ' the three stages ' or the 
* triple process' of memory. The three stages are 
those of retention, reproduction and recognition. 
We have a perception : it is retained in the mind, 
as an idea ; the mind reproduces it, brings it out 
again for use, when occasion arises ; then, when it 
is brought out, it is recognised as the old perception. 

The reader will see that these three terms furnish 
a description of memory which corresponds, roughly, 
to the facts. Yet it is a description which differs 
very considerably from the account of memory given 
in § 78. The difference illustrates the difference 
between scientific psychology and the popular psy- 
chology that we spoke of in § 3. Let us consider 
the terms in order. 

(i) It is misleading to say that the mind retains Retention. 



198 



Memory and hnagination 



Reproduc- 
tion. 



Recognition. 



ideas. If the mind were a creature inside of us, it 
might do this, and we know nothing about the fact. 
But if our ideas and f eeHngs and so on are the mind, 
an idea which is not now present in consciousness 
is not an idea at all. No ! it is not the mind that is 
retentive, but the brain-cortex; and even it is reten- 
tive only in the sense that it acquires habits of func- 
tioning. The commotion that the perception sets up 
in the cortex is not bottled away, and kept ready 
for use ; it persists simply in the form of a tendency 
of the cortex to fall into the same state of commotion 
later on. 

(2) If the mind stored up its ideas, keeping them 
out of sight till wanted, it would be true to say that 
they are reproductions of the original perceptions. 
They would be, in fact, renewed or revived percep- 
tions. But we saw in § 50 that, while primitive 
ideas are really weaker copies of perceptions, our 

. own ideas (as a general rule) are not ; the original 
commotion has been translated, by the tendencies of 
the nervous system, into the language of that par- 
ticular system: so that our memory of a sound (a 
musical air) may be a sight (printed words), etc. 
There need be no scrap or atom of the perception 
in the idea that means that perception to us. 

(3) Nor does the mind stand apart from the revived 
perception, look at it, and then go through a peculiar 
performance, the act of recognition. Whenever con- 
sciousness is made up of a central idea, of associates 
to that idea, and of the mood of confidence, memory 
is going on. 

All these words — retention, reproduction, recogni- 



§ 84. Direct Apprehension 199 

tion, recollection, memory, etc. — have come down to The old and 

the new 

US from a psychology which did conceive of the mind psychology. 
as a living creature of some kind, residing in the body. 
They were the names given to powers or faculties or 
capacities of this creature. It laid up its perceptions, 
as the careful husbandman lays up a stock of grain ; 
it brought them out, in time of need, as he brings out 
his store of wheat ; it gathered up again any that it 
had let slip, as he gathers up (re-collects) the seeds 
scattered on the granary floor ; etc., etc. We have out- 
grown these views. But words which have been used 
as long as these cannot be simply thrown away, and 
replaced by new terms ; they have become a part of 
the science. We must take them ; but we must also 
reinterpret them. In modern psychology, a memory 
is an idea accompanied by associated ideas and the 
mood of at-homeness. Memory in the abstract — 
tenacious memory, logical memory, poor memory — 
is one phase or feature of mental constitution. 

§ 84. Direct Apprehension. — Some perceptions and Recognition, 
ideas become so familiar, by constant repetition, that ^jrect^app^re- 
we do not recognise or remember them, but simply tension. 
take them for granted. We are then said to ' cognise ' 
them, or to have a ' direct apprehension ' of them. 

Think of the first watch that you possessed. For a while 
you ' recognised ' it every time that you pulled it out of your 
pocket ; the sight of it called up a flood of ideas — who 
gave it you, what a good one it is, which of your friends 
have one and which have not, etc. — and a strong mood of 
relief: you ' made sure ' that you had it, and were not 
dreaming. The relief alternated, perhaps, with satisfaction, 
hope fulfilled. Very soon, however, the satisfaction passed 



200 



Memory and Imagination 



What • tak- 
ing things 
for granted ' 
means. 



The of- 

course 

mood. 



over into equableness, and the recognition into direct appre- 
hension. You took the watch for granted ; of course you 
had one. 

So for the first few times that you apply an algebraical 
rule, you ' remember ' the rule. It comes up in mind with 
many associates, and you set about your work with relief and 
confidence. But as you go on, solving more and more prob- 
lems by its aid, you apprehend it directly: of course you 
use it, — it is the rule to use. 

In direct apprehension, all the associated ideas that 
help us to recognise and remember have fallen away. 
The perception or idea is so familiar that they would 
now be useless or worse than useless, encumbrances 
rather than aids. And the mood of confidence, though 
it has not wholly disappeared, is greatly weakened. 
It persists dimly, as a sort of fringe or halo, telling 
us that the perception or idea is a matter of course. 
The * at-homeness ' has degenerated into an ' of-course- 
ness ' which tinges all the very familiar things of life : 
our friends' faces, the furniture of our rooms, our 
own tricks of expression, the round of ideas that 
carries us through our day's work, and so forth. 

This of-courseness is a real mood, a pleasurable state, and 
not a state of indifference. Its psychological nature is best 
brought out by contrast. Just as we do not reahse the 
blessings of health till we have passed through a time of ill- 
health, so we do not know how really necessary to our com- 
fort the existing order of things is until it has been disturbed. 
Think of the misery of the weekly ' turn out ' of your special 
room ! You come home after the morning's work, and find 
everything looking strangely and uncomfortably new; books 
and papers are neatly arranged, chairs symmetrically placed, 
and an unhomely dampness is over all. Gradually things 
begin to take on their accustomed aspect; you pass from 



§ 85. Mental Imagery 201 

relief to at-homeness, and from that to the of-course mood 
of direct apprehension. 

§ 85. Mental Imagery. — To 'image' a thing means, Mental 
in psychology, to ideate it in kind : a tree is imaged ^"^^^^^ 
by a visual idea, a piano note by an idea of hear- 
ing, running to catch a train by a tactual idea: 
the ideas are the same in kind as the perceptions 
which they represent. In this sense, a mind is more 
or less ' imaginative ' according as it is better or 
worse constituted to think of things in kind : and 
the primitive mind — the mind whose ideas are pho- 
tographic copies of perceptions (§ 50) — is the most 
imaginative of all. 

But visual images are to images in general very ^^^ ^^^^ 
much what words are to ideas (§ 17). That is to say, especially, 

visual 

if a man thinks at all in ideas of kind, it is probable images, 
that those ideas are mainly visual, that the sound and 
touch parts of his perceptions are translated by the 
nervous system into visual terms. Hence when we 
say that so-and-so is 'imaginative,' we mean as a 
general rule that he can picture things and events 
distinctly in his mind's eye. A man may have the 
most vivid tactual ' pictures,' lifelike tactual images, 
— but still, if he lacks visual imagination, he will be 
classed by most of his friends as unimaginative. 

In strictness, then, the memory-types of Ch. VII. might The danger 
equally well be termed ^imagination types' (r/". § 77). We ° ^"^^S^^^" 
keep the word imagination, in the sense of visualisation, 
partly because it has come down to us in that sense from 
the older psychology and is current in the same sense in 
popular thinking ; but partly, too, because it is useful to 
distinguish the ' imaginative ' mind from minds of unimagi- 



202 



Memory and Imagination 



Children's 
lies. 



native constitution. We are apt to think of imaginative 
people as unreliable people, people who cannot describe an 
incident without embelHshing it. And indeed, this tendency 
to depart from facts is the besetting danger of the imagi- 
native mind. For suppose that, as ycTu tell a story, every 
word that you utter is supplemented at once by some pict- 
ure. The picture comes up by association ; and, since the 
verbal idea has a whole host of associates, there will almost 
certainly be elements in the picture that were not in the 
original experience. You naturally describe these, as well as 
the true features of the picture. And the process is repeated, 
till the facts are buried under a mass of fictitious details. 

A large proportion of the hes told by young children are 
of this character. They are not due to any moral defect ; 
it is simply that imagination colours the story in the telling. 
And as all imagination has upon it the of-course mark (the 
very fact that we imagine shows that image-ideas are those 
most famihar to us), the children are unable to distinguish 
between fact and fancy. They must be taught the distinc- 
tion, in the course of education, if what begins as a normal 
feature of mental constitution is not to end as a habit of 
exaggeration and disregard of truth. Rightly schooled, 
imagination is of the greatest service in after life (see above, 

§51)- 



Two ways of 
imaging. 



There are two different ways of imaging. Some 
people see the visual images as if they were out in 
space, — at about the same distance from the body 
that the objects would be which they represent. 
Others do not localise them at all : they are extended 
(p. lOO), but not referred to any particular distance 
from the body. It seems to be the rule that images 
of this latter sort are deeper in colour and more 
transparent, so to speak, than the others ; those of the 
former kind are more definite in outline, but harder 



§ 86. Passive Imagination 203 

and cruder in colour {cf, the effect of background, 
p. 97). 

§ 86. Passive Imagination. — - In passive imagina- Passive 

, . , , . . • ^1 . . r • imagination, 

tion, the imaging goes on m the state 01 primary pas- 
sive attention. It is best illustrated by the reading of 
fiction. The words of a warm, living story are the 
exact translations of imagined, pictured scenes ; and 
if the reader is to reconstruct the pictures thus 
transcribed, he must himself be not destitute of 
imagination. The writer, having elaborated his plot, 
photographs it in words ; the imaginative reader ab- 
sorbed in the words, reimagines the writer's images. 

Another instance of the same kind is afforded by the illus- Book 
trations to novels. If they are good, the reader's imagination 
is assisted, guided, encouraged ; if they are poor, it is 
choked. Cruikshank's and Seymour's and Browne's illus- 
trations of Dickens are of the former kind : the pictures of 
Fagin and Mr. Pickwick and Ralph Nickleby help us to 
imagine the men. Oftentimes, however, a picture shows a 
lack of imagination on the artist's part. In that case, the 
reader's imagination is suppressed, because he is held down 
to the picture, — whenever he begins to imagine a scene, 
the remembrance of the picture cuts across his images, and 
by its greater strength thrusts them out of consciousness. 
The reading of Robinson Crusoe may wholly fail of its due 
effect upon a child by reason of unimaginative cuts. 

Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii may be cited as a book 
which shows imagination on the side of the author, and demands 
it on the side of the reader. Thackeray speaks of the " wonderful 
ingenuity " with which Lytton '' illustrated the place by his text, 
as if the houses were so many pictures to which he had appended 
a story." A good part of Mr. Kipling's strength lies in his 
power to make the reader see, as if with the eye of outward per- 
ception, the scenes depicted in his stories. 



204 



Memory and Imagination 



What was said above of book illustrations applies equally well 
to the picture-jokes that abound in the comic papers^ — the series 
of pictures which trace the course of some humorous incident. 
Sometimes the artist leaves much to the reader^s imagination ; 
oftener, however, the incident is portrayed in so many stages, 
with so much detail, that one almost hears him say: ''You have 
no imagination ; I must come down to your matter-of-fact level." 
The consequence is that what should have provoked laughter 
calls forth resentment. 



Active or 

creative 

imagination. 



§ 87. Active Imagination. — In active imagination, 
the imaging has been preceded by a state of ac- 
tive attention. When a sculptor resolves to chisel 
a Siegfried, e.g.^ he reviews attentively the whole of 
the Siegfried legend, picking out a feature here and 
a feature there, and finally combines the traits se- 
lected into an ' ideal ' image. This actively formed 
image is expressed in the statue. So when an actor 
wishes to render the part of Hamlet, he scrutinises 
every word and action that is set down in the play, 
and actively * lives himself into ' the character. The 
natural, easy, ' of-coiirse ' presentation that he gives 
when his study is over is the expression of the total 
Hamlet-image that has been taking shape during the 
state of active attention. Once more : when a writer 
of romance sets to work upon a tale, he labours at 
every detail of his plot as if it were a mathematical 
problem to be solved. The story, which flows so 
easily as we read from event to event, — all the 
threads of incident converging of themselves, as it 
seems, towards the supreme incident of all, — this 
story is the verbal translation of the images resulting 
from all the antecedent drudgery. In short : wher- 
ever there is ' creation,' whether it be in painting or 



§8/. Active Imagination 



205 



sculpture, in music or in literature, in the mechanic 
arts or in science, the creation is the image-product 
of a long term of active attention. 

Walter Pater, the greatest master of polished English Style. 
prose that the century has seen, laid it down as a rule of 
good writing that one should acquire an instinctive feeling 
for the metaphors contained in words. That is, one should 
steadily keep in mind the literal meaning of words like * in- 
volved,' ' insipid,' ' essay,' '• exasperate/ etc., until the writ- 
ing of the word came to be always and invariably connected 
with the arousal in consciousness of an image, picturing its 
root meaning. When we want to copy a diagram, he said, 
we lay tissue-paper over it, and trace its outline through the 
paper. Words should be tissue-paper tracings of the writer's 
images ; and should be so true to those images that, when 
the reader lays the paper over his images, they correspond 
just as truly to these. — Notice that this is a matter of 
secondary passive attention with the writer, while it may be 
a matter either of primary or of secondary passive atten- 
tion with the reader. 

The word ' creation ' points to a characteristic difference The differ- 
between imasfination and memory. Memory, whether it is ^^ce between 

^ ^ -^ •' ^ imagination 

visual or not, is always bound down to the representation and memory. 
of actual past events. The representation may not be cor- 
rect : we may have forgotten parts of the event, and features 
may have been added to our idea of it, by association, which 
are really imagined features : but none the less reference to 
the past is implicit in the very notion of memory, and the 
mark of familiarity inclines us to trust what memory tells us. 
Imagination, on the other hand, has a certain freedom about 
it ; we need not image a past experience, but may put 
things together ' out of our own heads ' and not as they have 
ever occurred. 

The difference has its root in the nature of passive imagi- 
nation. As you read, e.g.^ an author's description of his 
heroine, you read about her hair, eyes, hands, etc., succes- 



2o6 Memory and Imagination 

sively ; and you consequently image her beauties successively. 
The hair is seen by itself, the eyes by themselves, the hands 
by themselves ; and each of these separate images is now 
at your disposal for future associations. Had you seen the 
heroine, you would have remembered her by a single, total 
image. — Having your total images thus broken up into 
detached part-images, you can imagine centaurs and satyrs 
and mermaids. And when you go from passive to active 
imagination, — when you are working over a mass of mate- 
rial for some artistic purpose, — the part-images that you 
select naturally fall into connections of their own ; the re- 
sult is something new, something which does not copy expe- 
rience. 

The limits of Notice, however, the limits of imaginative creation. 

imagination, ^j^ -pj^^ ]g^^ q£ imaginative connection is the law of 

memory and association over again; there is no new 
^ power' or ^faculty' of putting images together. (2) The 
images themselves are the images used in memory : there 
is no intrinsic difference between the memory-idea and the 
imagination-idea. You cannot imagine a colour, over and 
above the colours that you know : the most you can do is 
to think of the known colours as mixed in unfamiliar ways. 

Hawthorne's Preface to The House of the Seven Gables gives 
the reader an idea of the mechanics of active imagination ; and, 
if read together with Mr. Lathrop's Introduction, shows the inter- 
action of passive and active attention in the construction of 
a story. Poe's paper on "The Philosophy of Composition," 
whether it be wholly or only partly sincere, contains a great deal 
of sound psychology. 

In illustration of the effort of attention that must precede 
active imagination one may cite the story told of M. Puvis de 
Chavannes. The painter was to decorate the walls and ceiling 
of a room in fresco. Before setting to work, he spent several 
days in earnest contemplation of the bare surfaces. When re- 
monstrated with for this ' waste of time,' he replied : " I have to 
see my picture before I can paint it." — When Sir Henry Irving 
is rehearsing a new part, the stage becomes gradually strewn 
with crumpled fragments of paper, on each of which some ^ point ' 



Questions and Exercises 



207 



imagination. 



of action or emphasis lias been jotted down, — material evidences 
of the labour in art which the same art when perfected conceals. 

No image is intrinsically an image of imagination Associated 
(p. 189); the forming of the imagination-conscious- 
ness requires the presence of associated ideas and of 
a mood. The associates are those of the memory- 
image, miniis their definite temporal and spatial co- 
efficients : part-images are associated, with or without 
effort, to make a total image which does not corre- 
spond, as total image, to any particular event of 
previous experience. As for the mood : while the and affective 

• 1 1 • 1 ... 1 • r • processes in 

perception or idea which starts the series 01 images 
in passive and active imagination (the printed page 
of the novel, a photograph of the Bayreuth stage, or 
what not) may be wholly or partly unfamiliar, the 
images, of themselves, always bring the at-home 
mood with them, and in active imagination a specific 
form of it, the mood of intellectual ease (§ 97). 

Sometimes, however, the arousal of this mood is prevented : in 
passive imagination by the novelty, alarming nature, etc., of the 
central perception or idea ; in active imagination by the carrying 
over of active attention from the materials of imagination to the 
finished product (dissatisfaction in failure to realise one's ideal). 

Thus our visual idea of a coming examination (passive imagi- 
nation) is made up of familiar images. But other associates of 
the word ^ examination ' may be so disquieting that the mood of 
at-homeness gives place to that of anxiety. Again : if the sculp- 
tor has failed to image his Siegfried distinctly (active imagina- 
tion) after his active analysis of the Siegfried tale, he will realise 
that he ' might have done better ' with the theme, and be discon- 
tented with himself and his work. — Cf. what was said of recog- 
nition : § 79. 

Questions and Exercises 

I. The process of recognition can be studied in various ways, 
(i) Prepare a series of some 20 of the commoner scents. They 
can be procured from any chemist, and should be placed in small 



2o8 Memory and Imagination 

phials, securely corked, and wrapped with paper so that the sub- 
stance cannot be recognised by sight. Let the subjects smell 
them, one by one, and give an introspective account of the men- 
tal processes aroused by each. Within the series you Vv^ill prob- 
ably obtain recognitions of very different degrees of definiteness ; 
from the puzzled "I know, but can't remember" to a clear-cut 
set of memory-ideas. 

This experiment can be made to throw light upon mental con- 
stitution. Prepare a longer series of, say, 50 scents ; and get as 
many different orders of scents as you can : flower perfumes, 
resins, fruit extracts, chemicals, etc. Experiment as before : but 
note what kind of scent appeals most definitely, and what most 
indefinitely, to each subject. 

(2) The following experiment shows the importance of the 
word-idea, the name, in recognition. Have a photographer pre- 
pare for you a series of 7 papers, ranging from black to white 
through five greys. Pick out of the 7 a series of 5 : black, dark 
grey, grey, light grey, white. Show these to the subject ; and 
after 10 minutes' interval show one of the 3 greys, and ask what 
its place was in the original series. Mistakes will be very rare, 
for the reason that the paper is recognised not as a visual quality 
but by the name ^dark grey,' etc. — Now form a series of the 5 
grey papers. As the possibility of naming has grown less, the 
accuracy of recognition will also decrease. 

(3) The effect of lapse of time upon recognition may be 
tested as follows. Strike 4 notes at random from any octave 
of the piano. After 10 sec. strike some one of the 4 alone, and 
let the subject write down his recognition of it as the first, second, 
third or fourth note of the original series. — Strike 4 others, from 
a different octave, and wait 20 sec. ; then another 4, and wait 30 
sec. ; and so on. Note the point at which mistakes begin to be 
made, and the point at which recognition ceases to be possible. 
The subject should be cautioned to attend to the notes as sounds^ 
and not to name them. 

2. Memory, too, can be approached from various sides, (i) To 
test the accuracy of memory one may have recourse to two 
methods. The first is the method of description. Let a num- 
ber of persons write out from memory a description of a scene 
familiar to them all. Then let the descriptions be compared, 
as if they were examination papers, and marks assigned for each 
of the points remembered. — The second is the method of com- 



Questions and Exercises 209 

parison. The subjects are shown a picture of a landscape, a 
group of pieces of pottery, a furnished room, etc., or listen to 
a piece of music which contains a number of movements, changes 
of expression, etc. They are told, in each case, to attend care- 
fully. After the lapse of, say, an hour, they are asked to recall 
the prominent features of the sight or sound complex. That 
done, the perception is repeated, and the memory compared 
with it. 

Notice that the memory in this second case need not be a 
memory in kind : the picture may be remembered in words, e.g. 
The aim of the experiment is to discover how accurately a per- 
ception is remembered in the practical sense of ' remembering,' 
— how far it is available for use, in the idea-form that the par- 
ticular nervous system most favours. 

(2 ) The formation of a brain-habit may be roughly tested as 
follows. Learn a stanza of poetry by heart, reading it straight 
through again and again till you can just repeat it. Note the 
number of readings required. Wait till the stanza has been 
partly forgotten, — say, two days. Then relearn, in the same 
way. Note the number of readings required for accurate repe- 
tition. Let the memory lapse again : wait, say, four days. Then 
renew the readings, — and so on. You will find that the number 
of readings necessary for accurate repetition steadily decreases 
with the number of experiments made. For instance : though 
you may be very uncertain of the stanza on the seventh day, you 
will learn it in a less number of readings than you did on the 
third ; and though you may have ^ quite forgotten ' it on the 
thirteenth, you will relearn it still more easily ; and so on. This 
advancing easiness of learning is the mental side of the forming 
of a brain-habit. 

3. To test your imagination, (i) read through a scene of 
some play which you have not seen upon the stage. Having 
read it, write out a commentary, saying where the characters are 
standing from moment to moment, how they group themselves, 
how they should be dressed, what the general colour-scheme of 
the scene should be, etc. Or (2) take a theme like ' the founder- 
ing of a passenger steamer,' or ^ an alarm in the Turkish outposts,' 
or ' the exploration of a pyramid,' and make a word-picture of it, 
choosing your words as the equivalents of what your mind sees. 
Or (3) choose someone whom you know to be of imaginative 
turn, and describe to him a house or street or room with which 



2IO Memory and Imagination 

he is unfamiliar. When he has formed his mental picture, take 
him to the spot, and let him compare his idea with the reality. 
Your words, the translation of your images, are thus tested by 
retranslation into his images. 

4. What are the literal meanings of the words ifisipidj in- 
volved^ essay ^ exasperate ? 

5. Should maps be the sole visual aids allowed to the student 
of geography? Give reasons for your answer. 

6. Are there any statements in this Chapter that seem to ex- 
plain (i) the general conservatism of human society, and (2) the 
fact that old people are more conservative than young? 

7. One sometimes hears it affirmed that we never really forget 
anything ; that everything is remembered when the time comes 
for remembering it. How would you account for this opinion ? 

8. How does the image of expectation differ from the memory- 
image and the image of imagination ? 

References 

James, Textbook^ chs. xviii., xix. 

Sully, Human Mindj vol. i., chs. ix., x. 

Titchener, Outline^ §§ 70-80. 

Wundt, Lectures^ Lects. XIX., XX. J| 

Wundt, Outlines J §§i6, 17B. ' 



■,i. 



CHAPTER XI 

Thought and Self-consciousness 

§ 88. Language. — Among the bodily disturbances Emotion 
that express emotion are certain movements of Hmbs i^mpuiTive ^ 
and features (§§ 60, 61). And among these, again, actions, 
we noted the presence of gesture movements. Re- 
membering the close relation that emotion bears to 
impulse in the developed mind (§ 70), we are forced 
to believe that all these expressive movements are, 
in their origin, of the nature of impulsive actions. 
They are now more or less decayed, more or less 
weakened by having outlived their usefulness, more 
or less modified by the concurrence of the other 
forms of affective expression. But, in themselves, 
the wince and start and clenching of the fist are 
either impulsive actions or the direct descendants of 
impulsive actions (§ 74). 

Most important of all the impulsive expressions and espe- 
of emotion, however, are movements that we have articulate 
so far taken for granted, — the movements of the speech, 
larynx which, in man, produce articulate speech. 
The spoken word is the medium of thought, as the 
visual idea is the medium of imagination. Hence 
the problem of the origin and development of lan- 
guage is one of prime importance for psychology. 

Gesture movements are of two kinds. The one The two 
kind serves principally to express the feel-side of gesture. 
the emotion (subjective gesture); the other to ex- 

211 



212 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



press its situation-side (objective gesture). The 
* sour look ' upon the face is a gesture of the 
former sort ; the pointing of the finger in fear, 
the threatening with the fist in anger, and the 
drawing of an object in rough outHne by hand 
movements through the air, are objective gestures. 
Vocal sounds — cries, calls, exclamations — were as- 
sociated from the first with both these classes of 
gesture ; but their development in the two direc- 
tions has been very far from uniform. Subjective 
speech to-day is inarticulate, or at most merely 
interjectory ; objective speech, the speech whose 
function it is to communicate ideas, has attained 
an extraordinary degree of complexity in the va- 
rious languages of the civilised world. 

The uttering of a cry under stress of emotion is not pecu- 
liar to man ; it can be observed in very many of the lower 
animals, and especially in the social or gregarious animals. 
Moreover, when any one member of herd or flock sounds 
the ' danger note,' the whole company is alarmed. The 
sound is understood ; it carries a meaning with it. Hence 
it is perfectly natural that the first attempts at the distinc- 
tively human language, at articulate speech, should have 
been understood. The utterance of one tribesman must 
have meant something to his fellow-tribesmen, — all the 
more as it was eked out by objective gesture. 

This mutual understanding within a herd or tribe is 
possible only brought about, at the bidding^ of nature, by way of simul- 

in society. ^ ; . ^, ,^ , i , 

taneous association. Ihe whole company has been sub- 
ject at some time, let us suppose, to the emotion of fear. 
Every one is thus made familiar with the expression of fear 
in his neighbour. If, therefore, any individual ^ shows ' fear 
on a later occasion, his companions will catch the emotion 
from him, without themselves facing the situation which 



The origin 
of language 
is the warn- 
ing-note. 



Language 






§ 89. Thought 213 

he is confronting. — Our understanding of a friend's con- 
versation, then, is the outcome of a lesson learned lower 
down in the scale of life at the stern command of nature, 
a lesson in which failure to understand meant death. 

We shall never know what were the first words that our The earliest 
ancestors pronounced ; but it is highly probable that they ^o^^^- 
were imitative, descriptive words ; words which supple- 
mented the gesture-drawing in the air by adding the 
sound which the object made. On the other hand, we 
are able to explain the fact that articulate speech has so 
far outrun its primitive associate, objective gesture, in use- 
fulness. In the first place, sounds are ^ free,' while the The develop- 

limbs are tied to the body. Hence more variation can "^^^^ 

^ language. 

be obtained from words than from gestures ((/. the superi- 
ority of auditory to tactual rhythm: § 47). Secondly, 
words are heard more easily than gestures are seen : they 
are clearer-cut, less ambiguous, can be better apprehended 
from a distance, etc. Thirdly, there is less individuality 
about words than about gestures ; it is more difficult for two 
people to make exactly the same gesture than to give the 
same sound. Hence the word is the better symbol. 

Notice how the first beginnings of language illustrate Pro- 
fessor Wundt's statement (§ 70) that the general animal im- 
pulses are the earliest forms of emotion. The danger note 
may be regarded either as an expression of the emotion of 
fear, or as an impulsive action. 

§ 89. Thought. — The word ' thought ' is used in various uses 
various senses. We say, *' I can't think v^hat his ^ ^ °^^ ^* 
name is ! " when we should say, in strictness, *'I can't 
remember." And we say, ** I can't think how you 
could have done it ! " when we should say, " I can't 
imagine." Accurately defined, however, thought is 
the verbal counterpart of active imagination. Active 
imagination is thinking in images ; thinking is active 
imagination carried on in words. 



214 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



Thought the 
analogue of 
active imagi- 
nation. 



An account of the mechanism of thought will be 
nothing more, therefore, than the account of § 87, 
with * words ' substituted for * images ' in every case. 
The thinker comes to his subject-matter in the state 
of active attention; works over it, feature by feature; 
and finally reaches a verbal * conclusion ' as the result 
of the term of effort, — precisely as the painter faces 
his mass of image material, and produces his picture 
after a period of strenuous endeavour. And there 
is a further likeness. Thought, which in psychology 
is only one process amongst others, forms the sole 
subject of a special science, logic ; and imagination, 
also one psychological process amongst many, is the 
sole subject of the science of aesthetics. Logic has 
reached a far higher level of development, how^ever, 
than aesthetics ; so that we have in this Chapter a 
good number of technical thought-terms to define 
and explain. The farther a science advances, the 
more complicated does its word-machinery become. 



Words and 
images. 



Changes of 
sound and 
meaning in 
words. 



The difference between the word and the image is that 
the latter is photographic, a copy of reality, while the for- 
mer is symbolic (§ 41), a sign of a reality which is wholly 
unlike itself. There is a close resemblance between the 
inventor's mental forecast of a machine and the actual 
machine ; there is none between the word ' telephone ' 
and the actual telephone. We must remember, however, 
that the earliest words were, in all probability, photographic, 
— sound-images : it was only by slow degrees that the 
word acquired its symbolic character. On the one hand, 
the sotmd of the word became modified by frequent use, 
by climatic conditions, by growing ease of articulation, 
etc. ; on the other, the meaning became modified, as the 
idea which was originally expressed grew more definite 



§ 90- Judgment and Reasoning 215 

and accurate, or was altogether ousted by a newer idea. 
Change of sound and change of meaning have deprived 
words of their primitive naturalness, of their life-likeness to 
the ideas which are expressed by them. And as the sound- 
images gradually ceased to be sound-images, and became 
symbolic, other words came into use, which could never 
have been sound-images, — words, e,g,, which symbolised 
visual or tactual, not auditory impressions. 

These facts help us to answer a very common question : Can we 

the question whether we can ^ think ' without words. If we *^^^"^ 7^^"* 
^ out words? 

go back to the beginnings of thought, to the time when 
active imagination and thought were identical, we must 
answer yes, — active imaging can be done without words, and 
active imaging is the earliest kind of thought. If we take 
^ thought ' in the narrower sense, the answer will be negative. 

§ 90. Judgment and Reasoning. — The simplest The judg- 
thought-process, the unit of thinking, is the judg- 
ment. Certain material is presented, and worked 
over in the state of active attention. Some one feat- 
ure, or some group of features, is selected, drawn out 
from the mass ; is supplemented by associated ideas ; 
and so forms a new total idea. Henceforth, in place 
of the original, undifferentiated material, we have a 
judgment ; there are two complexes instead of one. 
We have, on the one hand, the original mass, in the 
state in which its working-over by "the attention has 
left it, and on the other the supplemented aspect or 
feature of the mass. The first of these is expressed 
by a word which we call the 'subject,' the second by 
what is called the * predicate ' of the judgment. The 
holding together of the crude material, and the hold- 
ing together of subject and predicate, are both alike 
matters of association. 



2l6 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



Reasoning. 



Instance of 
judgment. 



It is but seldom, however, that the material is 
exhausted by a single judgment. As a rule, the 
forming of one judgment suggests the forming of 
another; so that we have a train of judgments, or 
reasoning. The train of judgments, like the train 
of ideas, is held together by successive association. 

The splitting up of the material in judgment must not 
be understood as a simple halving, to be followed by an 
equally simple rejoining. In the first place, the feature 
seized upon by the attention is not taken bodily out of the 
material : it persists as part of the subject. In the second, 
the predicate is not merely the feature of the mass that the 
attention seized upon ; it is that feature supplemented by 
other, connected ideas. — Let us take an instance. 

Suppose that flints, which appear to have upon them the 
marks of human workmanship, are found in a PUocene bed, 
which has apparently remained undisturbed. The archaeologist 
is called upon to decide whether this is reliable evidence of the 
existence of man in Tertiary times. First of all he forms a series 
of judgments as to the disturbance or non-disturbance of the 
bed : feature after feature is attended to, and each in its turn 
supplemented by ideas derLved from previous knowledge. The 
outcome of the judgment-series, of the reasoning, is a final judg- 
ment : "This bed has not been disturbed." The original total 
idea of ^ Pliocene-bed-undisturbed ' has been worked over; the 
^ undisturbedness ' drawn out from it and supplemented; and 
the two ideas put together again as subject and predicate of a 
judgment. 

The same course 'is taken with regard to the flints. The 
investigator starts with the total idea of ' humanly worked flints,' 
and transforms it into the judgment : " These flints are of human 
workmanship." Then the two final judgments are united, and the 
conclusion is reached that man existed on the earth in the Tertiary 
period. 

This instance may seem to be unnecessarily compHcated. 
The reader may know nothing of geological periods or the 
problems of archaeology. Why should one choose such an 



§ 9^- Judgment and Reasoning 217 

illustration, instead of taking a simple sentence like : " The 
grass is green? " 

The reason is that judging, thinking, is a process of rare Judgment a 
occurrence in consciousness. Man has dubbed himself ^^^^ process. 
homo sapiens J and defined himself as ' rational animal ' ; 
but he rarely thinks. For we are, all of us, born into a 
society where judgments await us ready-made ; every gen- 
eration receives a heritage of judgments from the preceding 
generations. Hence facts that cost our ancestors immense 
pains to work out come to us as matters of course. Society 
is already organised : then we need not trouble ourselves to 
make judgments about social organisation. A form of re- 
ligion is established : we need not judge for ourselves in 
religious matters. A code of conduct has been laid down : 
we need not judge in matters of conduct. The applications 
of scientific principle are to be seen all about us : we need 
not understand the principles, — we may take the steam- 
engine and the telegraph for granted. Life is made smooth 
for us by the accumulated work of past generations. And 
even if we wish to judge for ourselves, there are so many 
past judgments on record in books, and so many others to 
be had for the asking from our elders, that independent 
thought is difficult. — It follows from all this that propo- 
sitions like "The grass is green " are not judgments at all; 
they do not express results w^hich we have gained labori- 
ously by active attention. That they have the form of 
judgment may be due either to the fact that they were 
judgments once, generations ago, or merely to the fact that 
we cannot utter more than one word at a time, and must 
therefore give the parts of our idea successively. It is 
only when (as in the instance given) a total idea is actively 
divided up that true judgment occurs. 

It must not be supposed, however, that we think less than But man 
our forefathers did. They did not sit down, in any particu- ^^"^■'^ ^^' 
lar century, and actively discuss forms of social organisation 
and codes of conduct, thus arriving at a judgment which we 
sluggishly accept. Their thinking was done as ours is, little 



2l8 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



and this 
raises him 
high above 
the animals. 



bit by bit. But this is the point : that thinking is confined 
for most of us, as it always has been for the majority of 
mankind, to some one corner of the field of knowledge, and 
to a few years of our life. Outside of our ' special subject ' 
we accept what other people tell us ; and when we have 
passed beyond early manhood, our thought moves but lazily 
even there, — we are slaves of the brain-habits set up in 
youth. When the channels of such acquired tendencies are 
supplied by numerous tributaries, when the train of habitual 
ideas is richly supplemented by associates, we have talent; 
when active thought continues into mature life, genius. 

Again : we must not lose sight of the advantage that even 
a little thinking gives man over the animals. There is evi- 
dence that the higher animals are, at times, actively imagi- 
native (§§31, 32). But it is highly significant that, although 
many of them have the physical means of speech, man alone 
has developed an articulate language, the vehicle of sym- 
bolic imagination or thought. The very fact that he can 
accept judgments ready made, that he can be passively 
attentive to groups of word-ideas, is a clear indication of 
his mental superiority. 



The material 
which calls 
for a judg- 
ment to set 
it in order is 
termed an 
aggregate 
idea. 



§91. Aggregate Ideas and Concepts. — The* material* 
which is worked over and divided up by the attention 
in judgment or active imagination consists of per- 
ceptions, ideas, tags of meaning and what not, — a 
mixed medley of the processes derived from sensation. 
It is not an idea, in the strict sense of the word ; 
sometimes, it is not even a complex of simultaneous 
associates ; idea may follow idea within it, by suc- 
cessive association. Nevertheless, it has a peculiar 
singleness of character, due to the fact that the 
meaning of the central idea in the total complex 
remains the same throughout. It is therefore given 
a special name, aggregate idea. 



§ 91- Aggregate Ideas an Joncepts 219 

/' 

Instances of aggregate ideas that w have had so far are 
those of Siegfried and his adventures, .he playing of Hamlet, 
the plot of The House of the Seve Gables, Pliocene-bed- 
undisturbedness, humanly- worked-f intness. In each case 
the dominant idea of the aggregator the ' topic ' of thought, 
remains unchanged through all the changes of associated 
ideas. — A good illustration is afforded by the idea of the 
coming sentence that you have m mind before you speak. 
There must be some total idea already formed, or you could 
not carry your sentence to its end grammatically ; but it is a 
total'id-Qdi, a mass which has not yet taken on the judgment 
form. 

It cannot but happen, when one considers the con- The concept, 
stancy of man's physical surroundings, the routine 
character of daily life, that one and the same feature 
will attract the attention in a large number of aggre- 
gate ideas. In other words : there will be many 
judgments in which the subjects are different, but 
the predicates the same. A predicate which is 
common to several judgments is termed a concept. 

The aggregate idea may be made up of images or of sym- The abstract 
bols (words, tags of meaning). The concept is always a ^^^^• 
symbolic process, and nearly always a word : when we speak 
of the corresponding image-process, we term it not concept 
but abstract idea. Thus the word ' horse ' is a concept ; it 
may be predicated of a vast number of animals. But the 
animal-picture in my mind which stands for the typical, 
standard horse is an abstract idea. The abstract idea, then, 
is made up of images which have attracted the attention in 
a long series of aggregate ideas. 

There has been much dispute, in the history of psychology, The contro- 

with regard to the nature of abstract ideas. John Locke (1632- versy con- 

1704), the founder of modern empirical psychology, speaks in his ^^^^^"S 

Essay co7icerning Hti7?ian Understanding of the abstract idea of jj 
a triangle as an imagined figure which is '•'- neither oblique nor 
rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all 



220 Thou^ \t and Self -consciousness 

and none of these at once." George Berkeley (i 685-1 753), 
who ranks only after Hume in the subtlety of his metaphysical 
thought, criticises Locke in these terms : " If any man has the 
faculty of framing in his mind such an idea of a triangle as is 
here described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor 
would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader would fully and 
certainly inform himself whether he has such an idea or no. . . . 
The idea of ^ man ^ that I frame to myself must be either of a 
white or a black or a tawny, a straight or a crooked, a tall or a 
low or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought 
conceive the abstract idea above described." 

What are the facts? (i) In many cases, there certainly may 
be an abstract idea of the kind that Locke describes. Take, e.g.^ 
the abstract idea of ^ horse.' If real horses are so much alike 
that I can at once recognise every separate specimen as a horse, 
there will evidently be distinct marks of ^ horsiness ' that can 
be represented in the abstract idea : a peculiar wavy outline, a 
peculiar posture, a mane, etc. My idea will not be the picture 
of any special horse, but a picture of average horsiness. 
(2) Where the individuals differ so much as the individual tri- 
angles do, no such idea is possible at any given moment. But 
an idea is a process : it need not all be present at the given 
moment. Hence I may have an abstract idea of a triangle in 
the sense that equilateral and scalene and isosceles triangles 
melt into one another, in quick succession, like dissolving views. 
The group of processes would mean * triangle,' and not ^tri- 
angles' ; and so might be fairly termed^;^ idea. (3) As a rule, 
however, the abstract idea (while it still remains abstract so far 
as meaning is concerned) takes the form of the memory-idea of 
a particular object. When we learned geometry at school, wx 
found in our text-books little equilateral figures which stood for 
the word triangle.' It is probable, then, that when we think 
of ^triangle' in the abstract we see one of these little figures. 
Our abstract triangle is not a triangle of all sorts, but an equi- 
lateral triangle. So our abstract horse will probably have a good 
deal of some particular horse about it. The abstract idea is on its 
way to become symbolic. (4) Since we are born into a world 
of words, we learn concept-words long before we learn to think, 
and associate them hap-hazard to the objects first called by their 
names. In after life, the picture of this hap-hazard object often 
serves as the abstract idea corresponding to the concept. Thus 



§ 92. Cojnparisofiy Relation and Abstraction 221 

the author's abstract idea of ^ hour ' consists of the picture of a 
small outline square drawn on a white background ; and this 
square is one of the squares of the daily report-cards upon which 
the marks for every hour's work were entered at the first school 
that he attended. In a case known to him, the abstract idea of 
^squareness' is a mental picture of one of the wood-squares in 
which honey-comb is sold. A symbolic picture of this kind may 
under certain circumstances oust the word, and itself take on the 
functions of the concept. 

§ 92. Comparison, Relation and Abstraction. — In the The logic of 
logical treatment of thought we find frequent mention the mv-^^ 
of the processes of comparison or discrimination, of choiogyof 
relation and of abstraction. The terms serve a use- ^^^ 
ful purpose in logic, since they enable the logician to 
divide up his subject into parts, and to discuss it part 
by part. On the other hand, they have been the 
source of much confusion in psychology. Psycholo- 
gists have been inclined to think that, as they stand 
for different processes in logic, they must also stand 
for distinct processes in psychology ; so that the mind 
must be regarded as endowed with a peculiar power 
of discrimination, with another power of relating, 
etc., — or at least that thought or judgment must be 
ranked as a fundamental psychological process along- 
side of sensation and affection. 

Plainly, however, psychology cannot allow logic to 
settle a question of this sort. We must find out, for 
ourselves, what the words mean when they are trans- 
lated into psychological processes ; and then we must 
decide for ourselves (by an appeal to introspection) 
whether or not the psychological processes are of a 
new kind, or of a kind already familiar to us. 

There is no difficulty in discovering what goes on Comparison, 
in our own minds when we compare and relate and 
abstract, (i) When we compare, we look at two ob- 



222 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



relation, 



abstraction, 



and their 
correspond- 
ing concepts. 



jects or two ideas attentively, the one after the other, 
and presently find in consciousness the word ' like ' or 
'different,' set in the mood of ease or of vague dis- 
comfort. That is all. Sometimes the comparison 
is passive : the word arises without thought, by way 
of successive association. Sometimes it is active ; 
the word arises as the predicate of a judgment. 
(2) The same thing is true of relation. When one 
idea succeeds another in the train of ideas, the two 
are by that very fact brought into relation with each 
other : this is passive relating. And when the feat- 
ure drawn out of the aggregate idea by the attention 
has been supplemented, and the new complex is 
predicated of the old, the two are, again, brought 
into relation : this is active relating. (3) Lastly : 
when the attention has drawn the predicate-feature 
out of the aggregate idea, the process of abstraction 
has taken place. We have ' abstracted ' the feature, 
*■ abstracted from ' (neglected) the rest of the idea. 

The reader will recall the parallel discussion in the case of recogni- 
tion (§ 79). When a perception has the mark of familiarity, there is a 
* recognition ' before us : we find no peculiar process of recognising, 
over and above the addition of the familiarity mark. So when two 
ideas associate, there is a relation before us : we find no process of re- 
lating, over and above the associative connection. Red and yellow are 
related, because they arouse the same mood in us, i.e,, connect with the 
same organic sensations ; the ideas of * greater ' and ' less ' are related, 
because they connect with the same general concept of magnitude; etc. 
The formula of relation is always ab-bc. 

Note that, while the natural moods of the comparing consciousness 
are as given above, they may be modified by circumstances : ^. p. 191. 

The processes themselves, then, are all old friends. 
Nevertheless, they offer a new problem for solution. 
How do we come to na^ne them.-^ The names 'com- 
parison,' 'relation,' etc., are evidently concepts; but, 
as evidently, they are concepts of a different order 



§ 92. Comparison^ Relation and Abstraction 223 

from those mentioned in § 91. The concept * horse' 
has an abstract idea corresponding to it, an idea 
made up from many perceived horses. But 'rela- 
tion' and 'abstraction' are just words; there is 
nothing in perception, nothing in visual idea, that 
corresponds to them. Granted that two associated 
ideas are related, how did we ever come to attend to 
the fact of their relation as something quite apart 
and distinct from them and their meaning ? 

The question is one that psychology is, undoubt- 
edly, called upon to answer. And it can be answered 
only by following out the history of mental develop- 
ment, and more especially of mental development as 
borne witness to by language. This history shows 
{cf. § 61) that all concepts were originally of the 
' horse ' kind, words that stood for definite abstract 
ideas. As thought advanced, however, words were 
used more freely, with less and less of reference to 
any corresponding abstract idea : objects of thought 
took their place alongside of objects of perception. 
Now, we have a large stock of verbal ideas, all with 
clear-cut and valuable meanings, which stand not for 
things or processes of the outside world, but simply 
for our own interpretations of these things and pro- 
cesses, for thought-objects ; and among them are to 
be counted the concept-ideas of relation and com- 
parison and abstraction with which logic, the science 
of thought, has to deal. 

To trace out the development of concepts in detail would 
be to write a Chapter, and that not a short one, in the psy- 
chology of language (see § 120). We can no more do that 
here than we can write Chapters in the psychology of custom 



224 



Thought and Self-consciousness 



The history 
of a con- 
cept-word. 



The per- 
ceived self. 



or art or law : it would take us too far afield. A single 
instance must suffice. 

If a logician were speaking of the relation which the concept 
' whiteness ' bears to the substance ' snow,' he would call it an 
attribute of that substance. An attribute is a characteristic or 
property or mark of a substance. How has the concept been 
formed ? 

We find in English, German and Latin the words thorps Dorf 
and tribus^ which are all, philologically, the same word. Tribus 
means ^ tribe'; and thorp and Dorf mean ^village.' The origi- 
nal meaning of the three, then, is that of a community, a society 
of men. — In Latin we find the verb tribuo, ' to assign ' or ^give ' ; 
and the past participle of this is kept in the English tribute. 
' Tribute ' means ' what is done by the tribe ' ; and ' what is done 
by the tribe ' is to pay for protection, to give or bestow some- 
thing upon a chieftain or a more powerful tribe in return for 
favours received. The special meaning retained in ' tribute' has 
become a general meaning (^to give,' simply) in the verb tribuo. 
— Finally, from tribuo comes ' attribute,' that which is assigned 
or granted to something. It is a long road that leads from the 
village community through the assessment of the community to 
the logical characteristic ; but it is without doubt the road that 
this concept travelled. 

§ 93. The Concept of Self . — We have in the con- 
cept of self an exceedingly good instance of concepts 
in general. For on the image side we have various 
stages, from the perception of self to its abstract 
idea ; and on the word side similar stages, from the 
concept corresponding to the abstract idea up to a 
concept that has been refined to the utmost limits of 
logical subtlety. It will be worth while, therefore, 
to find out as definitely as we can what comes into 
consciousness along with the words * I ' and * me ' 
and ' my.' 

(i) The primitive, perceptual self is made up chiefly 
of a mass of cutaneous and organic sensations, partly 



§ 93- '^^^^ Concept of Self 225 

of visual sensations, — the whole overlaid with an af- 
fection. Your *self,' the self that you perceive at this 
moment, is probably composed of pressures, tempera- 
tures, strains, breaths, etc. ; that is, a certain total 
effort or comfortableness or headachiness : together 
with the visual perception of hands and clothes. 
That is yoii^ as you perceive yourself. Perhaps you 
were not thinking of yourself at all until you began 
to read this Section ; but now that your attention 
is called to yourself, the perceived self comes out 
plainly: you realise that your glasses need adjust- 
ing, that your position must be shifted, that your 
forehead had better be relaxed, that your collar is 
sitting too tightly, that you have set about reading 
too soon after dinner, and so on. All this mass of 
felt sensations is yourself. 

Dr. Charles Mercier, writing of the perceived self from the medical 
standpoint, emphasises the part played by sensations from the alimen- 
tary canal. " Self means stomach," he says. " The function of assimi- 
lating food is the most fundamental of all the functions; it is antecedent 
even to locomotion and propagation. Hence anything which directly 
affects the organism as a whole affects the stomach," — and it is the 
alimentary organic sensations that loom largest in the perception of 
self. Flechsig, too, emphasises the importance of the cortical centre 
for touch and organic sensation in the make-up of the perceptual self. 

(2) The idea of self consists principally of a visual The idea of 

self 

picture of one's body and its usual surroundings. 
You see yourself seated in your accustomed chair, 
clothed in your usual way, busied about your usual 
occupations. This self-figure is seen upon a dim 
and shifting background made up of memory-images 
of past experiences. 

It is not often, however, that the self comes to 
mind so definitely as this description would imply. 
Q 



226 



Thought and Self -cons cioMsness 



The abstract The idea is for the most part an abstract idea : the 

idea of self. ^ . -, -^ i^iii ii- 

figure IS more shadowy, and the background clearer. 
What precisely the background is will depend upon 
the direction of thought at the time : it may be a 
professional or a social or a moral or a national or 
a religious background. In other words : the self- 
consciousness is made up of the verbal idea ' I ' (the 
concept), of a vague picture of the clothed figure, 
and of a mass of images of professional experiences, 
social incidents, etc. 

How shadowy the figure-self may become is amusingly illus- 
trated by a story that Professor Mach, of Vienna, tells in his 
book on the Analysis of Sensations. "I got into an omnibus 
one morning," he writes, "after a tiring night on the train, just 
as some one else was entering from the far end. ^ Some broken- 
down schoolmaster,' I thought. It was myself: there was a large 
mirror opposite the omnibus door." The professional figure was 
recognised before the personal figure. 



The logical 
self. 



(3) Finally we have the logical self, the bare con- 
cept of the * I ' or the *ego.* This has been gained 
by abstraction from the social, professional, moral, 
etc., self-concepts ; it is a sort of short-hand term 
for them all. Its meaning differs very considerably 
in different philosophical systems. Psychologically 
regarded, it stands on the same level with the con- 
cepts of relation, etc. : it does not correspond to any 
thing or process of the outside world, — the self-con- 
cept which does that is the concept discussed above 
under (2), — but stands simply for the philosopher's 
special interpretation of selfhood, i.e.y for a thought- 
object. 

The difference between this 'I ' and the preceding ' I ' 
may not be quite clear, at first. It becomes clear, when 



§ 94- Self -consciousness 227 

once the two I-experiences have been compared. How- 
ever far the first I-concept is removed from the perceived 
self, it is still the concept of oneself, — you ^ feel ' that it is 
you that are meant. As you read about the other ' I,' you 
are left quite cold ; it does not strike you that the author 
means you : the ' I ' is just an indifferent word with an indif- 
ferent meaning, like ^reality' or any other philosophical term. 

§ 94. Self-consciousness. — A self-consciousness is a The seif- 

,.,^1 , .1 -„,. conscious- 

consciousness m which the concept or idea 01 selt, or ness. 

some phase or part of it, is present in the state of at- 
tention, and thus serves as a centre of association for 
other ideas. Thus the introspective consciousness is 
a self-consciousness : the psychologist attends to some 
mental process which belongs to himself, which forms 
part of his experience and can never form part of that 
of another man (§ 5). In everyday life, the self-con- 
sciousness is usually a highly affective consciousness; 
when we think of ourselves, it is with marked self- 
satisfaction or with equally marked humiliation: 
These processes, * sentiments ' as they are called, 
will occupy us in the following Chapter. 

The discussion of self-consciousness filled a large place The problem 
in the older psycholosjy, in which the mind ^was supposed ^^ seif-con- 

-^ "^ ^ "-^ /^ ^ sciousness m 

somehow to turn inwards upon itself and observe itself, — the old 
being endowed with a pecuhar ' inner sense ' which enabled 
it to do this. Modern psychology makes no mention of an 
inner sense : for it, introspection means simply attentive 
experiencing, attentive remembering and attentive trans- 
lation into words (Ch. II.). 

For us, therefore, the problem of self-consciousness re- and in the 
solves itself into the question how the idea and concept "^^ psychol- 
of self are formed. We have seen that the earliest idea 
of self is the idea of the bodily self; and the body, whether 
it be our own body or another, is an object of perception, 



228 Thought and Self -consciousness 

an object of the outside world (Ch. VI. ; </. § 58). The 
idea of self is therefore formed at the bidding of nature, as 
all ideas are. On the other hand, the question how the 
concept of I-ness, of selfhood, came to be formed is much 
more difficult. The answer to it involves an elaborate en- 
quiry into the conditions of primitive life and the growth of 
language {cf, the concept of ^attribute'). There can be 
no doubt that the social form of life and (what is a result 
of this) the giving oi proper names to individuals are among 
the principal conditions under which the concept took 
shape. 

^Self-consciousness' in the popular sense of nervousness, 
awkwardness, bashfulness, etc., is one of the instinctive fears (see 
§ 75)- A good account of it is given by Professor Mosso, in the 
Introduction of his work on Fear. 

Questions and Exercises 

1. What animals do you know to be capable of articulate 
speech? Have you ever observed an animal signal to another 
by sound? What did the signal mean? How many different 
signal-sounds have you known an animal to employ? 

2. Can you give instances of ^suggestion' — of the catching 
of an idea or emotion by a number of individuals, as if by infec- 
tion — in human society? 

3. We said that "articulate speech has far outrun its primi- 
tive associate, objective gesture, in usefulness," and gave reasons. 
But we saw in § 61 that the sour look (subjective gesture) per- 
sists after the word-metaphor has disappeared : the development 
has proceeded in just the opposite direction. Why should this 
be? 

4. It is said that the letters of the alphabet are derived from 
hieroglyphics, i.e.^ pictures of actual objects in the external world, 
and have only by very slow degrees become sound-symbols. 
What psychological process would this evolution illustrate? 

5. Can animals reason? 

6. Suppose that you ask someone a question, and receive an 
answer. The answer will have the form of a judgment. Can 
you tell, by the way in which the answer is given, whether it is a 
true judgment or a mere hearsay answer? — How, in your own 



Questions and Exercises 229 

experience, does a judgment that you have formed by effort of 
attention differ from a statement taken ^ on trust ' ? 

7. What was the aggregate idea in the author's mind when 
he set to work to write the first Section of this chapter? 

8. What method would you use, if you were enquiring into 
the psychological development of the concepts of ^ likeness ' and 
' difference ' ? 

9. Write out a careful introspective description of (i) the 
perception, (2) the idea and (3) the abstract idea that you have 
of yourself. 

10. Whenever the abstract self of § 93 (2) comes clearly to 
consciousness, the idea is accompanied by a special group of sen- 
sations. These are at times so vivid as almost to change the 
idea of self to a perception of self. What are they? 

11. Animals may be actively attentive, actively imaginative. 
Man stands above them, in this sphere, because he thinks, i.e.^ 
uses words to symbolise the images actively attended to. Man, 
also, has passed beyond active to secondary passive attention ; 
the animals have not. — What biological reasons can you offer for 
this progress from active imaging to active symbolising, and from 
this again to secondary passive attention ? 

12. Give instances of change of meaning in words, due (i) to 
objective and (2) to subjective conditions. 

13. What is the psychological difference between the ^ analytic ' 
and the ^ synthetic ' judgment ? 

14. What is meant by the ^ unity of consciousness ' ? Would 
* centralisation ' be a better term than ' unity ' ? Why ? 

References 

James, Textbook^ chs. xii., xiv., xv., xxii. 

Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., chs. xi., xii. 

Titchener, Outline, §§ 81-85. 

Wundt, Lectures^ pp. 250, 251 ; Lects. XXL, XXIV. 

Wundt, Outlines^ § I7- 

Consult also: A. H. Sayce, Introductioji to the Science of 
Language. 1883. W. D. Whitney, Life and Growth of Lan- 
gtiage, 1880; Language and the Study of Language^ 1891 ; and 
pt. i. of the art. Philology in the Encyc. Brit., 9th ed. J. Ward, 
art. Psychology in the Encyc. Brit., 9th ed. 



CHAPTER XII 

Sentiment 

Sentiment § 95„ Sentiment. — The emotion bears precisely the 

same relation to the sentiment that the assimilation 
bears to the judgment, or passive to active attention. 
In emotion we are brought face to face with an inci- 
dent or situation, which overwhelms us, takes posses- 
sion of us, — in other words, is passively attended to. 
A very strong and very complex feeling is formed, 
and rendered still stronger and still more complex by 
the organic sensations that come with our bodily atti- 
tude towards the situation. In sentiment, we are also 

Formation brought f acc to f acc with an incident or situation ; 
but it is of a kind that demands active attention, 
effortful attention now to this part and now to that. 
We take possession of it, so to speak, in place of its 
taking possession of us. Otherwise, the sentiment re- 
sembles the emotion. A strong and complex feeling \ 
is formed, and reinforced by organic sensations. The 
bodily expression of sentiment is of the same kind as 
that of emotion. . 

The core of an emotion, then, is a simultaneous as- 
sociation of ideas; the core of a sentiment is a judg- 
ment or an active imaging. The sentiment stands 
upon a higher level of mental development. There is 
no other difference. 

We find the same difficulty in investigating sentiment that 
we found in investigating thought. Just as there are many ap- 

230 



§ 96» The Forms of Sentiment 231 

parent judgments that are not really thought at all, but mere 
associations, so there are many apparent sentiments that are 
based not on a true judgment-process but on assimilation. 
And again \ just as active attention lapses into secondary 
passive attention, so does an affective state that begins as 
sentiment lapse into emotion. Hence in describing and 
identifying the sentiments we must be constantly on our 
guard against confusing them with emotions based upon 
ready-made judgments, and with emotions based upon 
judgments which were once really judgments, but have 
now become matters of habitual association. 

For instance : my ' sentiment ' of honour may never have Tradition 
cost me a moment's effort of attention. A definition of ^J^^^^^^^l 

their effect 

honourable conduct has come down to me, by tradition, and upon senti- 

I accept it without thought. Conduct-situations take pos- "^^^^• 

session of me : I face them by an emotion. Or again : my 

' sentiment ' of beauty may have once been a real sentiment. 

I may have laboriously studied art-canons, and studiously 

dissected art-forms by active attention. Now, twenty years 

after this labour, I have nothing but an emotion of beauty ; 

I am instinctively pleased or displeased by works of art, 

without making the least effort to analyse them. — In form, 

then, I have a moral and an aesthetic sentiment ; in reality, 

I have two emotions. 

Here as everywhere in mental life the lapse of active into 
passive may be very good or very bad for us. If we pass on 
to new activity, as soon as the once-active has become pas- 
sive, — using the old material as the foundation of new judg- 
ments, and so rising higher and higher in knowledge the 
more of this passive material we accumulate, — then we are 
turning human endowment to its full and proper account. 
If we are content with the passive, resting on the founda- 
tion built for us by our ancestors, we are no better than 
the animals. 

§ 96. The Forms of Sentiment. — - There are four 
groups or classes of sentiments : the intellectual or 



232 



Sentiment 



Intellectual, 



social, 



religious 



and sesthetic 
sentiments. 



logical, the moral or social, the religious and the 
aesthetic. 

(i) The situation which calls forth the intellectual 
sentiments is made up, not of coexistent objects and 
concurrent processes of the outside world, but of 
thought-objects, of our own interpretative processes. 
We never look at a scientific ' fact ' except through 
the eyes of a theory. It is the theory, the thought- 
situation, the group of concepts, that calls out the 
intellectual sentiment. And the central judgment, 
round which the affective processes gather, is the 
judgment ^This is true' or *This is untrue.' 

(2) We have our ideals of social conduct, as we 
have our scientific theories. The situation that evokes 
a social sentiment is a behaviour-situation, the agree- 
ment or disagreement of actual conduct with our ideal 
of conduct. A man's actions as member of a family 
or profession, as citizen of a town or nation, etc., give 
rise to the judgment 'This is good' or 'This is bad 
behaviour.' This judgment forms the core of the 
social sentiments. 

(3) The situation in the religious sentiment, like 
those in the intellectual and social sentiments, is an 
ideal situation, made up of thought-objects and inter- 
pretations. The central judgment differs very con- 
siderably in different religions, and in the same 
religion at different levels of development. In 
general terms it runs ' This is right ' or ' This is 
wrong in the eyes of God.' 

(4) The judgment that underlies the aesthetic sen- 
timents is 'This is beautiful' or 'ugly.' The situation 
which calls out the judgment may be wholly ideal 



m 



§ 96. The Forms of Sentiment 233 

(a * pretty ' theory, a ' neat ' argument), or may be 
partly perceptual and partly ideal (a beautiful land- 
scape, symphony, etc.). 

Two points call for notice here, (i) Notice that there Practical 
is an obvious reason for the existence of the first three kinds ^^P^^^,^"^^ 

of senti- 

of sentiment. It is of great practical importance for us to ments. 
know whether theories are true or untrue, whether our con- 
duct will be approved or disapproved by our friends and 
acquaintances, and whether we are living our whole life 
rightly or wrongly. If our theory is untrue, if it has out- 
run or neglected the facts of the world, we shall not be able 
to adjust ourselves to these facts ; our inventions will not 
work, our crops will not come up, etc. If we act badly, 
life will be made unpleasant for us, by imprisonment, by 
withdrawal of friendship, etc. If we believe in a divine 
retribution, and yet direct our whole life amiss, run counter 
to the divine will, we must expect to suffer for it. — On the 
other hand, there seems to be no such reason for the exist- 
ence of the aesthetic sentiments. We cannot say, offhand, 
what their practical value is ; we must make a special inves- 
tigation (§ 100) to discover it. 

(2) Notice that the sentiments, like the feelings and Affective 

emotions, fall into two sets : a pleasurable and an unpleasur- ^"^/*^^^ J^ 

, , . sentiments. 

able set. They give evidence of the two affective qualities, 
pleasantness and unpleasantness, but not of any others. 

Not very much is known about the sentiments. More 
work has been done upon the aesthetic group than upon 
the social, intellectual or religious; but even there our 
knowledge is uncertain. 

The sentiments are sometimes spoken of as the ^higher' feel- Higher and 
ings, in contradistinction to the emotions and the feelings proper, Jower feel- 
which are Mower' feelings. We may accept the words ^higher' ^ ' 
and Mower,' if we interpret them to mean simply *more complex' 
and '• less complex.' On the other hand, we may not use them 
in the sense of ^ more commendable' and Mess commendable' : 
such an interpretation takes us out of the sphere of psychology 
into that of ethics (§ 121). 



234 



Sentiment 



Intellectual 
sentiments : 
qualitative, 
temporal 



and oscilla- 
tory. 



§ 97. The Intellectual Sentiments. — These senti- 
ments show very clearly how nearly related senti- 
ment in general is to emotion. We have qualitative 
and temporal sentiments, as we had qualitative and 
temporal emotions. More than that, we have a dis- 
tinction of objective and subjective forms among the 
qualitative sentiments, just as we had among the 
qualitative emotions. 

At the same time, the difference between ' senti- 
ment and emotion is brought out with equal clear- 
ness. There can be no "tnidway emotion : an emotion 
is either joy or sorrow, either hope or fear; there is 
no new emotion that is something between the two, 
but is neither the one nor the other. This is a neces- 
sary consequence of the fact that the emotions are 
formed in the state of passive attention ; we are ab- 
sorbed, overwhelmed by the situation. But suppose 
that we face the situation by a judgment, by active 
attention. It is clear that, as the various incidents 
are attended to, different predicates may suggest 
themselves. Here is a theory : is it true or untrue } 
Facts a^ b^ c speak for it ; facts x^ y, z against it. 
The attention oscillates, uncertainly, between the 
two predicates ; and the result is an oscillatory senti- 
ment. 

The following are the principal qualitative intellectual 
sentiments, so far as they have been worked out. The 
names of the pleasurable sentiments are printed in capitals ; 
the oscillatory forms in italics. 

(i) Objective Sentiments : 

(<2) Objective forms : agreement, obscurity^ contradiction. 

(^) Subjective forms : ease, confusion^ difficulty. 
(2) Subjective Sentiments : 



§ 97- The Intellecttial Sentiments 22, S 

(a) Subjective forms : belief, doicbt^ disbelief. 

{p) Objective forms : truth, ambigicity^ falsehood. 
The series belief, doubt, disbelief is perhaps that of the 
greatest practical importance. The corresponding moods have 
all received names : acquiescence, indecision, incredulity. 

Chief among the temporal intellectual sentiments is that 

of curiosity. It is resolved upon qualitative sentiments as 

follows : 

Curiosity 



(fulfilled) (deferred) (unfulfilled) 

Successful thought Baffled thought Failure of thought 

Curiosity, the desire to know for the sheer sake of knowing, 
is a human offshoot of the instinct of inquisitiveness. This 
latter is one of the universal animal instincts ; life depends 
upon having a full knowledge of one's surroundings. 

The intellectual attitude has grown to be so habitual with 
civilised man that, unless we have a thorough grasp of the way 
in which active attention passes over into secondary passive 
attention, we may be tempted to look upon it as something primi- 
tive and original, rather than as the final product of the accumu- 
lated judgments of generations. Take the case of belief, ^.^. The psy- 

What could be simpler, at first sight, than the consciousness chology of 

belief 
which finds expression in the phrase '^ I feel sure '' ? ^ Feeling 

sure' seems as natural as ^feeling cold.' So we find Hume say- 
ing that belief is nothing else than the having of a clear idea : 
when we have a clear idea, then we are believing. " Belief,^' lie 
declares, "is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady 
conception of an object than the imagination alone is ever able 
to attain." And Professor James, making out a list of the char- 
acteristics that an idea must have if it is to be believed, puts 
down in the first place " coerciveness over attention, or the mere 
power to possess consciousness." 

Now it is true that we, to-day, may ^believe' without judging, 
and ^ feel sure ' without having the sentiment of belief. We 
approach every fact with centuries of belief and disbelief upon 
us ; we fall, instinctively, into a believing or disbelieving or 
doubting attitude. Nevertheless, there was a time when there 
was no belief. Animals do not believe or disbelieve ; they have 



236 Sentiment 

not advanced far enough in mental development. They just 
accept things : pleasantly, if the things are familiar, unpleasantly, 
if they are unfamiliar. Belief arises much later, and falls back 
into the ' feel-sure ' attitude much later still. As reflex movement 
developes out of impulsive action, so does the reflex feel-sure 
attitude develope out of numberless true beliefs, the sentiments 
of our dead ancestors. 

Social senti- § 98. The Social and the Religious Sentiments. — The 
^^^ ^' social sentiments also fall into subjective and objective 

groups : the former including the various forms of self- 
approval and self-disapproval, the latter indicating 
differences of attitude towards the behaviour of others. 
They are, however, exceedingly difficult of classifica- 
tion, for the reason that they are exceedingly liable 
to lapse into emotions. The duties that every member 
of a society owes to its other members are so drilled 
into us, in early life, that later on we take social situ- 
ations for granted, and react upon them by passive 
attention. It would be impossible, in most cases, to 
find a difference, e.g.y between guilt (sentiment) and 
fear (emotion), or between shame (sentiment) and 
chagrin (emotion). 

We may distinguish the following social sentiments : 
(i) Subjective: 

(a) subjective : pride, modesty ; objective : power, im- 
potence. 

(J?) subjective : innocence, guilt ; objective : justice, in- 
justice. 

(c) subjective : dutifulness, undutifulness ; objective : 

HONOUR, dishonour. 

(d) subjective : vanity, shame ; objective : emulation, 

self-effacement. 
(2) Objective : 

(a) objective : trust, distrust ; subjective : security, in- 
security. 



§ 98. Social and Religious Sentiments 237 

(J)) objective : patronage, indebtedness ; subjective, free- 
dom, restraint. 

(c) objective : magnanimity, jealousy ; subjective : dis- 
interested PLEASURE, envy. 

(^) objective : forgiveness, revenge ; subjective : com- 
passion, hard-heartedness. 

There are, doubtless, many others. But the very 
fact that sympathy and antipathy are emotions — 
that certain social situations appeal by rights only to 
the passive attention — makes it difficult to draw any 
hard and fast line of division between social senti- 
ment and emotion. 

It is still a matter of debate whether the close con- Religious 

, . , 1 , T , . 1 , T • 1 1 • sentiments. 

nection that obtains between religion and morals m 
modern society is a recent development, or has 
persisted from the earliest forms of human com- 
munity to the present day. In all probability, how- 
ever, the roots of religion and of morals are planted 
in different soil, and the growing together of the two 
is a matter of comparatively recent occurrence (see 
§ 120). Theoretically, therefore, we must distinguish 
the religious from the moral sentiments, however 
closely they may be interwoven in our everyday 
experience. 

The following are some of the religious sentiments : 



(i) Objective. 


Obj. form. 


Subj. form. 




Awe 


Humility 




Reverence 


Unworthiness 




Rebellion 


Disobedience 




Faith 


Exaltation. 


(2) Subjective. 


Subj. form. 


Obj. form. 




Sinfulness 


Remorse 




Spiritual Pride 


Self-righteousness 




Contrition 


Repentance. 



238 



Sentiment 



Esthetic 

sentiments 

beauty. 



Symmetry 
and the 
golden sec- 
tion. 



§ 99. The ^Esthetic Sentiments. — There are two 
pure or simple aesthetic sentiments, those of beauty 
and of ugliness. And the aesthetic judgment may 
be passed in two perceptual fields, those of sight and 
of hearing. We find beauty in visual form (architec- 
ture, statuary, natural scenery), in colour (painting, 
stage grouping, landscape), and in visual movement 
(dancing); as well as in musical form (rhythm, etc.), 
harmony and melody. 

A good deal of work has been done in psychological 
laboratories upon what is called ' the aesthetics of simple 
forms.' Series of figures are prepared (crosses, ovals, rec- 
tangles, etc.), the proportions varying slightly from figure 
to figure, and the subject is required to say which figure 
in the series is the most pleasing. It is found that the 
proportions chosen are (^) those of i : i, i.e.^ those of sym- 
^ metry, and (^) those of (approximately) 5 : 8, those of 

the ^ golden section,' as it is termed. Taste, that is, is 
by no means so variable as is commonly supposed. 

The precise explanation of these facts is uncertain : we 
are not even quite sure whether the judgments are really 
aesthetic judgments, or whether they depend upon such 
things as ease of eye-movement. The history of music, 
however, gives us a parallel. The harmony that was 
judged to be most beautiful in the primitive stage of har- 
monic music was that of the octave. Nowadays, the 
octave seems thin and poor : the most beautiful har- 
mony to us is that of the major third (<^-^). It may be, 
then, that the equal division of symmetry represents the 
primitive standard of beauty, and that v/e have grown to 
see the beauty of the golden section, as we have to hear 
that of the major third. 

Sublimity, There is a third sentiment, that of sublimity, which 

tragedy and . . 1 . n 1 • 1 

comedy. IS partly aesthetic and partly mtellectual, social or 



i 



§ 99- ^^^ Esthetic Sentiments 239 

religious. A fourth, that of tragedy, is part aesthetic 
and part social ; and a fifth, that of comedy, is part 
aesthetic and part intellectual. 

When we say that a scene or an action is ^ sublime,' we 
usually mean that our sentiment of beauty is mixed with 
the religious sentiment of awe. Sometimes, however, it is 
mingled with the sentiment of truth or of power. In no 
case is sublimity a pure aesthetic sentiment. 

The tragic sentiment has as its central judgments ' This 
is beautiful ' and ' This is unmerited.' Tragedy is therefore 
a mixture of beauty and injustice (social sentiment). The 
sentiment of the comic or the ludicrous appears to be of 
the oscillatory character (§ 97). We have the judgments 
* This is pretty ' and ' This is contradictory ' in quick suc- 
cession. 

Psychologists have always found it easier to give illustrations 
of these sentiments than to explain them. As a matter of fact, 
full explanation is at present impossible. We must wait (i) till 
the experimental method has finally decided for us how many 
qualities of affection there are, and (2) till the historical develop- 
ment of art, in all its branches, has been more thoroughly worked 
out. 

In the meantime, we may look at some instances of aesthetic Instances, 
sentiment in literature. The figures of Hamlet and of Lear in 
Shakespeare, and of Antigone in Sophocles, are eminently tragic. 
Even at moments when we are most fully appreciating the beauty 
of the presentation, the sentiment of injustice crops up : why 
should these people suffer so ? we ask ; what have they done to 
deserve their fate? Dogberry and Verges, the ^two foolish offi- 
cers ' in M^ich Ado about Nothings are unsurpassably co77iic. 
There is an aesthetic fitness or Tightness about what they say ; 
but when we consider the sense, all is contradiction, — we have 
what Professor Sully calls a ^'delicious incongruity of ideas." 
To take one case : 

^'Dogb. (to the Watch). You are to bid any man stand, in 

the prince's name. 
Watch. How, if a' will not stand? 
Dogb. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go." 



240 



Sentiment 



For instances of the sentiment of sublimity, the reader must 
search his own experience. The author has felt it most keenly, 
in its form of awesome beauty, when hearing Beethoven^s Ninth 
Symphony or Wagner's Gotterddinmeriing ; when standing on 
a mountain-top, watching a thunder-storm pass beneath him ; 
when at sea, on a calm starlight night ; when passing through 
a deeply cleft ravine, etc. There is a solemnity pervading the 
beauty in all such experiences. — An instance of sublimity, in the 
sense of mingled truth and beauty, which will appeal to all who 
have the artistic temper, is afforded by the Venus of Milo. The 
figure is so perfectly beautiful that we should feel awed by it, 
were there not with all the stateliness a womanly touch, a 
winningness, that puts us at our ease in its presence. The 
Dorian Girl (the ' Diana of Gabii ') is beautiful, graceful ; but we 
do not feel her beauty in the same way as we do that of the 
Venus. The same sentiment arises when one stands before 
a Velasquez. "' Everything Velasquez does,'' says Mr. Ruskin, 
" may be taken as absolutely right by the student." We have 
perfect beauty, then, as in the Milo ; and, as with her too, it 
is not awe, but rather a friendliness towards the artist, confi- 
dence in his utter truthfulness, that suggests itself to the spec- 
tator. — Lastly, we experience the sublimity that is compounded 
of the sentiments of power and beauty when we look down from 
a mountain-top upon a landscape that shows the marks of man's 
dominion over nature, or when we ride a stormy sea in a stout 
ship, or when we read of heroic deeds and feel a personal eleva- 
tion that reflects their heroism. 



Is aesthetics 
of practical 
value? 



§ 100. The Practical Utility of JEsthetics. — At first 
sight, nothing appears to be more useless, a greater 
mental superfluity, than the aesthetic sentiment. 
People of aesthetic temperament enjoy certain things 
more than others do ; but they suffer more, also, and 
their enjoyment does not seem to bring them any 
practical advantage. What is it, then, that has kept 
the aesthetic sentiment alive? Why has it not simply 
died out, — disappearing as, e.g.y the power to move 
the ears has disappeared ? 



/ , 



§ lOO. Practical Utility of ^Esthetics 241 

Perhaps we should not assume that the sentiment 
is useless. Movement of the ears was useful once : 
we see that it is so still to some animals. Esthetics 
too, then, may have been useful once. And indeed, 
the very fact that it has not died out, while ear- 
movement has, should make us hesitate to take its 
uselessness as a matter of course. Let us look at 
its development historically. 

In primitive times, the body was decorated with Primitive art. 
a view to attracting a mate. Just as the male bird 
comes out in gorgeous plumage in the pairing sea- 
son, so the savage decked himself with ochre and 
shells and feathers to make his person attractive. 
Then, by slow degrees, decoration travelled from 
person to surroundings : first, from the body to the 
clothes, and then again from clothes to house. But 
as the primitive house is a rude structure, and its 
owner poor, not much can be done by way of indi- 
vidual house-adornment ; and so we find the members 
of a tribe clubbing together, so to speak, to decorate 
the common house, the temple. Esthetics now enters 
into the service of religion. 

Again : as the tribes settled down to agricultural The art of 

, , , , . • 1 civilisation. 

pursuits, man became a labourer ; systematic and regu- 
lar work grew to be a necessity. But work means 
play ; if we labour, we must have recreation. What 
games, though, shall grown-up people play } They 
have lost their pleasure in children's games. Es- 
thetics comes to the rescue : art is the play, the 
proper recreation, of grown-up workers. We speak, 
and rightly speak, of the ' plays ' of Shakespeare, 
and of * playing ' the violin. Esthetics has now lost 



242 Sentiment 

its religious meaning, and has been turned to secular 
purposes, — purposes of the very highest utility. 

In no less than three ways, then, has the aesthetic 
sentiment proved itself of practical importance. It 
has been useful in courtship ; it has been useful as 
enhancing the impressiveness of religious ceremo- 
nies ; it is still eminently useful as the play of adults. 

Esthetics It may seem strange that a form of judgment, /.<?., of 

as play. effortful attention, should serve as recreation. Esthetics 

would appear to be rather a kind of work than of play. But 
we must remember (i) that primitive aesthetic judgments 
were inseparably connected with social and rehgious judg- 
ments, and that these latter judgments had to be passed ; 
men were forced to take thought of their neighbours and to 
propitiate their gods. Hence the aesthetic attitude became 
a natural one at a very early stage of human development, 
and is a traditional ' of course ' attitude with ourselves. 
And (2) we know that that play is most effectual, most 
recreative, which consists in a less serious copy of work. 
By repeating our work in lighter form, we get the maximum 
of refreshment with the minimum of mental wrench. Hence 
for the intellectual man, the man whose work is the work of 
judging, aesthetics, judging in play, is the very best sort of 
holiday- taking. 

Moreover, the aesthetic sentiment, like all the sentiments, 
is liable to lapse into emotion, and the aesthetic judgment 
to lapse into a simultaneous association of ideas. We can 
enjoy now as the result of past judgments : the hearing of 
Tannhduser, the sight of a Velasquez or of the Venus of 
Milo, may give us a perfectly effortless pleasure. Indeed, 
art owes a good deal of its vogue in modern times to 
the fact that we have, up to a certain extent, an inherited 
capacity for enjoying it without judging it at all. A sym- 
phony can be enjoyed only after judgment passed ; but a 
waltz takes possession of us at once. Paderewski's playing 



Questions and Exercises 243 

can be appreciated only by a few : but thousands will pay 
large prices to ^ see his fingers move/ just as they will to 
see trapeze-work at a circus. All this, of course, helps to 
keep art alive, — gives it a real usefulness, if not that higher 
usefulness which it has for those who use it aright. 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) Can you name any moods that correspond to the social 
sentiments mentioned in § 98 ? Describe a typical situation in 
which each of the sentiments of the list might arise. 

(2) Give six instances of ugliness — three of ugly sights and 
three of ugly sounds — from your usual surroundings. Why are 
they ugly ? 

(3) Have some argumentative passage (§ 100 of this book, 
e.g.^ read aloud to you. Notice how the intellectual sentiments 
arise and disappear, as the argument proceeds. Write out the 
names of the sentiments that you feel, and mark the sentences 
which call them forth. 

(4) Compare the list of intellectual sentiments with the list of 
emotions given in §§ 63 and 64. Pick out the emotion into 
which each of the sentiments might pass, if active attention 
lapsed into passive. 

(5) Draw two series of crosses, varying (i) the length of the 
cross-bar, and (2) its position upon the stem of the cross. Lay 
the series in turn before a class, and let each member pick out 
the most pleasing cross. See how closely the chosen proportions 
approach those of the golden section or of symmetry. — Are there 
any objects in constant use whose proportions seem to have been 
arbitrarily decided, but which when measured give the proportion 
5:8? 

(6) Can you recall any characters, in history or fiction, who 
might stand as embodiments of some social or religious senti- 
ment? 

(7) Why does a man cough, when embarrassed ; and rub his 
eyes, pass his hand over his forehead, or scratch his head, when 
perplexed? Name some of the other characteristic expressions 
of sentiment. 

(8) How does ^curiosity' differ from ^inquisitiveness'? 



244 Sentiment 

(9) It is said above that aesthetics ^has been' useful in court- 
ship and religion. Is it still useful in either? If so, how does its 
present differ from its primitive usefulness ? 

(10) Matthew Arnold defined poetry as "criticism of life." 
Does this definition suggest any further field of usefulness for 
aesthetics? May aesthetics be properly extended to cover it? 

(11) If my artistic sentiments have once become emotions, 
how am I to rise to new activity, — to move forward to new senti- 
ments on the basis of my emotion material ? 

References »l 

James, Textbook^ pp. 160-163, 384, 385. i 

G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty^ 1896. 

Sully, Human Mind, vol. II., ch. xvi. 

Titchener, Outline, §§ 86-91. 

Wundt, Ethics, vol. I., 1897, ch. iii. 

Wundt, Lect tires, pp. 378-380. 

Wundt, Outlines, pp. 163, 189, 217, 241, 265. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Complex Forms of Action 

§ loi. The Development of Action beyond the Impulse. Action with 
— The most complicated action that we discussed in active at^en- 
Chapter IX. was the full-formed impulsive action, — ^^^^• 
an action whose motive, given in the state of passive 
attention, contained the idea of own movement, the 
perception or idea of the object moved to or from, 
and the idea of the result of movement. We have 
now to see what actions are performed in the states 
of active and of secondary passive attention. 

Active attention occurs when there are at one and 
the same time two or more claimants for the foremost 
place in consciousness (§ 32). One idea fits in with 
one aspect of the mental constitution or disposition 
of the moment, and another with another; one exci- 
tation runs into certain open tendency-channels, and 
another into others. There is thus a conflict of exci- 
tations in the cortex, and a conflict of ideas in con- 
sciousness. We have a see-saw of attention for a 
while, and then, at last, some one of the contestants 
wins the day. 

The conflicting processes need not be ideas : they Selective 
may be perceptions or assimilations or groups of 
ideas of any degree of complexity. Suppose, now, 
that we have at the same time two rival impulses, 
two impulses which cannot both be acted out because 
their movements are antagonistic. There will be a 

245 



246 



The Complex Forms of Action 



Volitional 
action. 



Secondary 

psychomotor 

action. 



Automatic 
movement. 



conflict, an effortful see-saw of attention, until the 
one or the other wins. Action which is motived in 
this way is termed selective action. 

Suppose, again, that the claimants for the attention 
are one of them an impulse and one of them an idea 
(or group of ideas) that has never formed part of a 
motive, that does not ' prompt to action ' at all. In 
this case, too, there may be a conflict : we may move, 
or we may remain inactive and attend to the second 
claimant. If we move, we perform what is called a 
volitional action. 

Selective and volitional actions are the highest, 
the most complex, that we know ; they are the only 
forms that appear in the state of active attention. 
Both alike are simplified by the lapse of active into 
secondary passive attention. And the simplifica- 
tion that they undergo is merely a repetition of the 
simplification of the impulse itself. We have, first, 
the change into psychomotor action, and then a final 
descent into secondary reflex or (as it is better 
named) automatic movement. 

It is with these four types that we are concerned, 
therefore, in the present Chapter. 



i 



I 



The conflict 
of impulses. 



§ 102. Selective Action. — Selective action has its 
root in alternating impulsive actions. When a young 
child suddenly comes face to face with a strange dog, 
the impulse towards (cf. the instinct of inquisitive- 
ness) and the impulse away from- (^. the instinctive 
fear of the unknown) are realised in quick succession. 
The child goes up to the dog, runs back to its father, 
approaches the dog again, and so on. Later in life, 



§ I02. Selective Action 247 

when active attention has become a permanent feature 
of mental constitution, there is but one movement : 
the conflict of impulses is outwardly manifested only 
in the slowness with which movement follows upon 
the presentation of the motive, and (perhaps) in a 
puzzled and perplexed expression of face. In other 
words, we have in the conduct of adults selective 
action, and not alternate impulsive actions. 

Sometimes, however, the alternation of impulsive actions takes 
place even in adult life. Thus it has happened to the author, in 
face of the two impulses (i) to shut a door on the right hand 
and (2) to seat himself at his typewriter-table on the left, actually 
to begin a right-hand movement towards the door, and then all 
at once to slue round to the typewriter, without having closed it. 
— In his story of " Dite Deuchars ^' Mr. Barrie has drawn a vivid 
picture of conduct permanently arrested at this half-way house 
between impulsive and selective action. 

The impulses whose conflict ends in selective Complex 

, . 1 1 1 1 impulses. 

action may, however, be very much more complex 
than the impulses which we have described hitherto. 
We have assumed that the 'object' of the impulse 
is quite simple ; something that can be grasped by 
a perception or idea or assimilation. Suppose that 
the object is a situation, of the kind that gives rise to 
emotion, — that the impulse consists of idea of own 
movement, of ideas of a situation (idea of object), 
and of idea of result of movement : the consciousness 
that is made up of rival impulses will then be a very 
complicated affair. And again : suppose that the 
'object ' of the impulse is a situation of the kind that 
gives rise not to an emotion, but to a sentiment, a 
situation that has to be dissected by active attention 
before it can be grasped as a whole : consciousness 



248 The Complex Forms of Action 

The most becomcs Still more complicated. We are actively 
type^of seiec- attentive to a mass of ideas, parts of which (the 



tive action. 



situations) themselves demand active attention if 
they are to be adequately met. In such a case, 
selective action is a most momentous matter ; the 
drain upon the organism's strength is very great, and 
the choice exceedingly fatiguing. This is selective 
action at its highest point of development. It is 
rarely performed. 

The reader will remember what we said in § 90 of the 
rarity of judgment, and of the facility with which we all of 
us take judgments * on trust ' from those who have already 
done the work of thinking. Remembering this, he will 
understand how tangled a set of processes the various forms 
of selective action are, and how difficult it is, in any given 
instance, to say whether active attention has been involved 
or not. Thus many choices in the sphere of moral conduct, 
which wear the look of extremely complex selective actions, 
may have resulted in actual fact from the conflict of simple 
impulses. Take the case of a rivalry of duties ; of impulses, 
/.<?., whose objects are duty-performances. We do not know 
what to do ; but still we choose, very often, without thought. 
"• I shall feel better if I do that,^^ we say, and do it almost 
The selective offhand. Now if we had acted selectively, as we appear to 
have done, we should (i) have analysed the situation that 
called for the doing of the one duty, (2) have dissected that 
which demanded the doing of the second duty and (3) have 
weighed the two resulting judgment-impulses against each 
other, — all in the state of active attention. 

The simplification, as always, has its good side. There 
are times when we 7?iust strain our active attention to the 
utmost ; and the more lightly we take the clash of situations 
in lesser matters, the more energy we have left for the great 
occasions. If we refused to accept our neighbours' experi- 
ence, and insisted on judging for ourselves, we should proba- 



action of 
daily life. 



§ 103. Volitional Action 249 

bly be too tired to act efficiently when the call came for 
really selective action. It is also true, in many cases, that 
the * right ' action is the action which reahses the impulse 
that is strongest at the moment when the alternatives are 
suggested, and which is therefore, so to say, an instinctive 
action. If we scrupulously weigh consequences, and con- 
sider all the pros and cons, we are liable to lose our moral 
balance, to cut ourselves adrift from the moral anchorage of 
social tradition and public opinion, and so to act against our 
^ better nature.' 

Any biography that goes at all minutely into details furnishes 
examples of selective action. Thus when Napoleon was free to 
turn his thoughts to England, after the treaty of Schonbrunn 
(1809), he found two possibilities of action: he might himself 
take in hand the conduct of the war in Spain, or he might devote 
himself to heightening the rigour of the blockade in the north 
and northwest. He chose the latter course. Again : when war 
with Russia became inevitable ( 1 8 1 1 ), he deliberated whether to re- 
store Poland and begin a campaign upon the Lithuanian frontier, 
or to strike a sudden and decisive blow by invasion with an over- 
whelming force. The latter course was chosen. — A carefully played 
game of chess will afford several such instances on a small scale. 

§ 103. Volitional Action. — Volitional differs from The conflict 
selective action merely in the fact that the conflict andldea^^ 
is carried on, not between impulse and impulse, but 
between an impulse and an idea (or group of ideas) 
which does not contain any inducement to action. 
I am reading a novel, when the thought strikes me 
that I ought to be working : the impulse to rise from 
my chair and set about writing comes into conflict 
with the passive interest of the story. My rising, if 
it takes place, is a volitional action. 

Volitional action is subject to the same degeneration that instance 

we have just traced out in the case of selective action, o^ volitional 

. action. 

Suppose, e.g.^ — to quote a much- discussed instance, — that 

a well-to-do citizen, a man holding municipal office, the 



250 The Complex Forms of Action 

father of a family, the administrator of important trusts, is 
walking by a river-side, and sees a child fall from a wharf 
into the water. He has the impulse to jump in after it. 
On the other side are ranged the ideas of the seriousness 
of a wetting and the certainty of influenza to follow, the 
thought that his life is worth something to the community 
while the child has not yet proved itself honest or capable, 
the remembrance of duties owed to wife and children, etc. 
If all these considerations are reviewed, it is highly probable 
that no action will follow. In most cases, however, the 
jump is taken, and taken impulsively. Society praises the 
bravery of the act, and accounts it as volitional : and, 
indeed, it wears all the appearance of a volitional action. 
Nevertheless, there was no conflict, or at most a very weak 
one. Nature has seen to it that the men who inspire trust 
are the men who perform actions of this sort ^ instinctively * ; 
for nature looks to the good of the whole ; and the keeping 
alive by example of the spirit of self-sacrificing courage is 
more for the good of the whole than the loss of a single 
member of society, however valuable, is for its harm. 

So it may be in the simpler case given above. I may 
rise and begin to write without realising that the struggle 
has fairly begun. The novel was less interesting than usual 
for an instant ; my attention flagged, and was seized by the 
idea of working ; and here I am, with my pen travelling 
over the paper. There can be no doubt that many volitional 
acts, so called, are really impulsive. Nevertheless, there 
are times, as every reader must be able to assert from his 
own experience, when true volitional action is required of 
each one of us. 

We have a typical instance of volitional action in the crossing 
of the Rubicon, i.e.^ the invasion of Italy, by Julius Caesar 
(B.C. 49). The alternative to this step was the passive resig- 
nation of the two Gauls and the dismissal of the army. 

Shakespeare pictures volitional action, e.g.^ in Juliet's drinking 
of the potion prepared by Friar Laurence {Romeo and Juliet, Act 
iv., sc. 3). Juliet deliberates: 



m 



§ 104. Choice and Resolve 251 

"What if this mixture do not work at all? . . • 
What if it be a poison ? . . . 
How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 
I wake before the time? . . . ■" 

and so on; but finally drinks. — Cf. Desdemona^s resolve to 
follow her husband rather than stay with her father {Othello^ Act 
i., sc. 3). 

§ 104. Choice and Resolve. — Selective and voli- 
tional action are characterised, we said, by the sloiv- 
ness with which movement follows the formation of a 
motive. The period of inaction which intervenes be- 
tween thought of action and action itself has received 
different names, according as the conflict of ideas 
goes on in the state of active or in that of passive 
attention. If we have a merely passive alternation of 
motives (as in the case of the child in presence of the 
dog ; or in cases where the rival impulses are more ►^ 
complicated, but still do not require to be actively 
dissected, — where the situations that stand for the 
object-ideas are such as to call forth emotions only, 
not an oscillatory sentiment), we speak of a period of 
Iicsitation. If we have an active weighing of motives. Hesitation, 
as happens when the situations of the impulses are 
too complex to be passively apprehended, we speak 
of a period of deliberation. Hesitation is accompanied Deliberation 
by the mood of uneasiness or depression or dissatis- 
faction ; perhaps even by the emotion of melancholy 
or care. Deliberation is attended by the sentiment 
of obscurity, confusion, doubt, etc. 

Deliberation, then, is the series of judgments or Choice and 
of active imagings that precedes selective and voli- 
tional action. But before movement can take place, 
deliberation must have been replaced by something 



252 



The Complex Forms of Action 



else ; conflict must have been changed into victory 
for the one side and defeat for the other. The emer- 
gence of the victorious judgment is termed choice in 
the case of selective and resolve or decision in the 
case of volitional action. 



Instance of 
choice with 
active atten- 
tion. 



The appearance of choice or resolve, since it means that 
the conflict is over, means that active has lapsed into sec- 
ondary passive attention. But this does not necessarily 
mean that thought has ceased. Since the victorious judg- 
ment is a judgment^ we may still be actively thinking, after 
we have chosen or decided. Hence the end of deHberation 
may be accompanied by a sentiment (beUef, ease, justice, 
compassion, etc.). More often, however, the judgment has 
become so familiar that active thought is not required : we 
have the emotion of relief or disappointment. — Further, to 
make the complication still worse, the fact of choice or 
resolve may itself become the topic of judgment : we may 
be proud, ashamed, etc., just because we have chosen or 
decided. 

An instance may help to make the argument clear. Sup- 
pose that, after doubting whether to include an account of 
certain facts in this book or to leave it out, I decide to 
include it. My writing it down is a volitional action. What 
are the processes that constitute its mental antecedents ? 

(i) I have two conflicting situations before me : the put-in 
and the leave-out situations. Both are thought-situations, 
and each requires active attention ; there are many argu- 
ments on either side. 

(2) I deliberate : that is, I attend actively to both situ- 
ations, with the sentiment of doubt. This means much 
effort. 

(3) I decide : the eflbrt of deHberation ceases, and the 
put-in judgment wins. At this point I may experience 
simply the emotion of relief; but, on the other hand, I may 
have the sentiment of agreement or truth that belongs to 



§ 104. Choice and Resolve 253 

the judgment as a judgment. If the put-in judgment was 
thoroughly familiar when I began to deliberate, the senti- 
ment will not arise : if it was not, the situation may demand 
further thought. 

(4) The process may stop here, or may continue. Let 
us suppose that it continues. I may think that it was fool- 
ish of me to spend so much time and trouble in deliberating, 
or that my deliberation showed that I was underestimating 
the reader's capacity ; in that case I am ashamed. Or I 
may think that I need not have worried, for I have thought 
out the subject so completely, and made it fit in so well with 
what comes before and after it, that every one can understand 
it : in that case I have the sentiment of pride or of aesthetic 
fitness. 

Not till all these processes have run their course does the 
actual writing begin. Four times over I have had to think : 
first, about each of the situations •, secondly, about both of 
them together ; thirdly, about the situation decided upon ; 
and fourthly, about my own decision. Notice that all these 
processes may equally well be present when there is no action 
whatever. If, e,g.^ I decide to leave out the account, (i), 
(2) and (3) will still necessarily be there, and (4) may 
occur also. 

A very common form of choice is that pictured by Tennyson in The choice 
^^ CEnone." Paris is to give the golden apple to the fairest of the ^.^ everyday 
three chief goddesses. Here comes first, making "proffer of 
royal power." Paris, moved by the single impulse, 

" held the cosdy fruit 
Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power 
Flatter^ his spirit " ; 

but, before the action was performed, Pallas had intervened with 
the promise of wisdom. There is a conflict of impulses : 

"' she ceased, 
And Paris pondered." 

His deliberation is interrupted by Aphrodite''s offer of 

" The fairest and most loving wife in Greece " ; 



254 



The Complex Forms of Action 



Will. 



The psy- 
chological 
arguments 
for freedom 



and this motive, forming just as the other two have been weak- 
ened by mutual struggle, carries the day. 

The taking of a resolve is portrayed in the opening scenes of 
Macbeth. Beginning in the ^^ suggestion whose horrid image 
doth unfix the hair," it culminates in the words : 

" I am settled, and bend up 
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat." 

§ 105. The Freedom of the Will. — The psychology 
of attention and action is often termed the psychology 
of the Will : just as that of affection, feeling, emotion 
and sentiment is termed the psychology of Feeling, and 
that of sensation, perception, idea, association and 
thought the psychology of Intellect. Now one of the 
most debated questions in philosophy is that of 
the ^freedom of the will/ It is evident that we can- 
not answer a philosophical question by appeal to our 
own single science : answers must be obtained from 
ethics and logic and the other philosophical sciences, 
as well as from psychology, and the whole list of 
answers compared and summed up. But as there is a 
psychology of will, as psychology is one of the sciences 
appealed to by those who discuss this question, it will 
be well for us to ask here what psychology has to say 
upon the matter. 

The psychological arguments in favour of the free- 
dom of the will are two. In the first place, it is said, 
we choose and decide even when the rival groups of 
ideas are of equal strength, when the two conflicting 
situations are equally attractive or equally repulsive. 
This shows that the mind is free to choose or resolve 
as it pleases. Secondly, after we have chosen or 
decided, we are confident that we might have chosen 
differently ; a reexamination of the motives shows 



\' 1 



§ 105. Tlie Freedom of the Will 255 

that there was nothing in them that could force or 
compel us to choose as we did. But if the motive 
upon which we acted did not compel us to act, the 
mind must itself have added to the power of that 
motive, must have turned freely to the one situation 
rather than to the other. 

There are, however, two criticisms to be made and their 
upon these arguments, (i) They both speak of the 
mind as if it were a living, acting creature. That is 
the popular view of mind : but we have given it up 
for the scientific view, which is that mind is a stream 
of mental processes (§ 4). It is natural, perhaps, to 
think of a mind-creature as choosing freely ; it is very 
difficult to think of a stream of processes as making 
a choice. Yet this is what we should be obliged to 
think, if the arguments held. But they do not hold : 
for (2) they both assume that the conscious motives 
to action are the sole conditions of action. Now this 
is a wholly unwarrantable assumption : the arguments 
have missed the fact that bodily tendency, natural and 
acquired, — the trend of the whole nervous system, 
to which no conscious process corresponds, — helps 
the conscious motives to determine action. The 
tendency-channels in which some cortical excitations 
run are deep and well-worn ; those which others find 
open are shallow and difficult. Naturally, then, the 
motives that correspond to excitations of the former 
sort gain the victory over their rivals of the latter sort 
(§ 32). While there is all the appearance of fair play, 
nature is working behind the scenes, favouring the one 
contestant and hindering the other. 

As psychologists, therefore, we cannot accept the 



256 The Complex Forms of Action 

freedom of the will unless (i) we throw away our 
scientific definition of mind, and return to the popular 
notions held about it. And further, (2) as psycholo- 
gists we are able to explain, by means of nervous 
tendencies, certain phenomena of choice which are 
commonly supposed to furnish a basis for the belief 
in freedom. On the other hand, we must always re- 
member that psychology is not the sole judge of the 
question. 

Secondary § io6. Psychomotor Action and Automatic Movement. 

psychomotor 

action. — The psychomotor action that we have now to dis- 

cuss is derived from selective or volitional action. 
Some particular impulse is habitually victorious in 
the conflict of deliberation, and gradually degenerates 
as the result of victory. Hence this psychomotor ac- 
tion differs from that of § 71 in two circumstances. 
In the first place, it is of higher parentage : the impul- 
sive action from which it descends is an action whose 
motive is of the complex kind described in § 102, — an 
impulse in which the object-perception is replaced by 
an object-situation. Secondly, this complex impulse 
is not one of the universal animal impulses, such as 
food-taking, but an impulse which has been put 
together in the course of a single lifetime. In ori- 
gin, then, and in matter, there is a difference ; in all 
other respects the actions are identical. 

Instance. An extremely good instance of this secondary sensorimotor 

action is to be found in the playing of a skilled pianist. 
When we are learning to play the piano, our actions are 
one and all selective ; we have to think which dot upon 
the score stands for which note upon the keyboard, and 
which finger is to be set down where. As we become 



§ io6. Psychomotor Action^ Atttomatic Movement 257 

adepts, the reading of the score becomes more and more 
mechanical ; until at last, if we are skilful players, the bare 
sight of the printed sheet ^touches off' the movements of 
hands and feet ; we fall instinctively into the right key, the 
right time, the right emphasis, etc. We may even carry 
on a conversation, and still play correctly, though we have 
never seen the score before. — Speaking from internal initia- 
tive is an instance of secondary ideomotor action. 

The automatic movement differs from the reflex Automatic 
(§ 72) in the same tv^o ways. It is the final degen- reflex^movX^ 
eration-product of selective or volitional, not of simple "^^"*- 
impulsive action ; and its mechanism is not inherited, 
but acquired during the individual life. This latter 
fact means, of course, that it is less stable than the 
reflex. It is a reflex movement while it lasts ; but 
it may be forgotten, the habit of it may be broken up. 

A man who writes much at a particular desk will dip his Instances, 
pen in the ink-bottle quite automatically, reflexly. He does 
not need to gauge the distance or direction or the depth of 
dip j his eyes are not raised from the paper, and his attention 
does not slip for a moment from the subject in hand. So 
one may be able to write quickly and accurately with a 
typewriter, without having any certain idea at all of the 
position of the various letters : the striking here or there ^ 
becomes entirely automatic. 

Nevertheless, if the writing be given up for a time, the 
movement must be relearned : the pen is guided to the 
ink-bottle by the eye, and the typewriter strokes are prac- 
tised anew. On the other hand, a real reflex never lapses ; 
a feather applied to the sole of your foot makes the foot jerk 
up, however long the interval since the last tickling. 

Swimming and walking seem to stand half-way between 
the automatic and the reflex movements. Both are learned 
with care and eflbrt ; neither, it would appear, is ever quite 
forgotten. The reason is that though we do not inherit the 



258 



The Complex Forms of Action ' 



The forms 
of action. 



mechanism of the movements ready-made, we inherit strong 
tendencies or dispositions towards them. 

For automatic movements ^. //., 301 ; F., 739, 779. For the 
bodily machinery of the complex movement in general cf. F.y 
729 ff., 739 ff. 

§ 107. The Classification of Action. — It v^rill, per- 
haps, assist the reader to grasp the mutual relations 
of the various forms of action and movement, to see 
the motor side of mind, so to speak, in its right per- 
spective, if we give a complete Table here in the 
shape of a genealogical tree. 

Primitive Action 
(Movement of whole body on attention: § 68) 

Simple Impulsive Action 
(Idea of own movement, Perception of Object, 
Idea of result : §§69, 70) 



Psychomotor Instinctive Complex Impulsive Complex Impulsive 



Action 

(§71) 



Movement 



Reflex 
Movement 

(§72) 



Instinctive 
Action 

(§73) 



Action Action 

(Idea of own move- (Idea of own move- 
ment, Perception of ment, Percepdon of 
emotion-situation, sentiment-situation. 
Idea of result : Idea of result : 

§ 102) § 102) 



Selective Action 
(§ 102) 



Volitional Action 
(§ 103) 



[Secondary] Psychomotor Action (§ 106) 



Mechanical 
Movement 
(of blood, 
intestines, 
etc. : § 72) 



Automatic Movement (§ 106). 

§ 108. The Compound Reaction. — Taking the sen- 
sorial form of the simple reaction as our starting- 



§ io8. The Compotmd Reaction 259 

point, we can build up, for introspective examination, 
artificial selective and volitional actions, and can trace 
experimentally their passage into psychomotor actions 
and automatic movements. 

But we cannot pass from the sensorial reaction to Two kinds 
the * choice reaction,' as it is called, at one step. For ^eaction^^^ 
there are two obvious differences between impulsive 
and selective action. In the former, the action-con- 
sciousness contains one idea of movement and one 
perception (or idea) of object. In the latter, there 
are at least two ideas of movement, and at least tzvo 
perceptions (or ideas) of object. Otherwise, of course, 
there could be no conflict of impulses. — If we are to 
have an artificial selective action, then, there must be 
a number of stimuli presented by the experimenter, 
and a number of responsive movements agreed upon 
between him and the subject. But it would be bad 
policy to introduce both of these complications at the 
same time. On the one hand, the subject would be 
confused ; on the other, we should not know what 
the total reaction-time meant. Much of it might repre- 
sent processes that were very different from the process 
of choice which we desire to measure and introspect. 

To avoid this difificulty, we first of all make reac- 
tion-experiments in which there are two or more 
stimuli, but only one answering movement. That 
done, we proceed to the more difficult experiments, 
in which every stimulus has its own particular move- 
ment of response. The subject thus has opportunity 
to observe the simpler forms of the action-conscious- 
ness, in ascending order, before he grapples with its 
most complex and most highly developed form. 



26o 



The Complex Forms of Action 



Discrimina- 
tion and 
cognition 
reactions. 



What is said here of the artificial selective action 
holds also, mutatis mutandis, of the artificial volitional 
action. This will become clear from a consideration 
of the actual experiments. 

I. Experiments with a Number of Stimuli and One Move- 
ment, — Two forms of the reaction-experiment fall under 
this head. 

1. The Discrimination Reaction. — In the simple sen- 
sorial reaction, the subject moves when he has apperceived 
a familiar stimulus, a sound or pressure which has become 
known to him by previous practice. In the discrimination 
reaction, he moves when he has apperceived some one of 
two or more familiar stimuli. He may be told, e.g., that he 
will hear either the tone or the noise with which his simple 
reactions have familiarised him ; but he does not know 
which of the two stimuli will be presented in any particular 
experiment. 

This reaction plainly stands at a higher level than the sen- 
sorial simple reaction. The subject comes to the work in 
the state of active attention ; his mood is that of intellectual 
obscurity (§ 97). When the stimulus appears, obscurity 
becomes agreement or contradiction, according as his ex- 
pectation has tended in the right or the wrong direction. 
As soon as the sentiment has been resolved upon the at- 
home mood of recognition, and before the stimulus has 
called up associated ideas, verbal or other, the reaction- 
movement is made. 

2. The Cognition Reaction. — This differs from the dis- 
crimination reaction in the fact that the stimuli are known to 
the subject only in a vague and general way. Thus he may 
be told that he will hear a musical sound, and that he is to 
move when he has apperceived it ; but he is not told (what 
the experimenter has decided) that the sound will be given 
upon some one of the three instruments, piano, violin and 
whistle. 



ji. 



§ io8. The Compound Reaction 261 

Here the strain of active attention is greater than before; 
the mood of recognition takes shape more slowly ; and it is 
very difficult to move before associated ideas crop up, — to 
keep to the rule of the experiment, and prevent the reaction 
from becoming an association reaction (§ 76). 

The following are some of the times of cognition reactions : 

Colour stimuli ..... .300 sec. ; 

Printed letters 320 sec. ; 

Short words (printed) . . . .320 sec. 

The times of discrimination reactions are slightly less than 
the corresponding cognition times. 

II. Experijnents with a Number of Stimuli^ each of which Choice 
is correlated either with a Specific Movement or with the ^^^^^^o^^. 
Absence of Movement, — All these reactions are termed 
' choice reactions.' The choice reaction may be either an 
artificial selective or an artificial voHtional action. More- 
over, it may be based either upon the discrimination . or 
upon the cognition reaction. Hence we have four experi- 
mental forms to consider. 

1. The Choice Reaction as Selective Action. 

a. The T>iscrimi?iation Type. — The reactor is told, e.g., 
that he will hear either the familiar noise or the familiar 
tone ; and that he is to react to the former by a movement 
of the right, to the latter by a movement of the left hand. 

b. The Cognition Type, — The reactor is told that he will 
hear a musical sound, and that he is to react to what comes 
by naming it, by uttering aloud the name of the instrument 
which gives it. The movement is here a movement of the 
muscles of the larynx, etc., not a movement of the hand. 

2. The Choice Reaction as Volitional Kciion. 

a. The Discrimination Type. — The subject is told that he 
will hear either the familiar noise or the familiar tone, and 
that he is to reply to the former by a movement of the 
right hand, but not to reply to the latter by any movement. 

b. The Cognition Type. — The subject is told that he will 



reactions. 



262 The Complex Forms of Action 

hear either a musical or an unmusical sound, and that he is 
to react to the former by naming the instrument which gives 
it, but not to react to the latter at all. 

It is clear that we have, in these four instances, cases of 
true selective and true volitional action. The reaction-times 
are, naturally, longer than those of the discrimination and 
cognition reactions. Volitional action requires, upon the 
whole, a shghtly less time than selective action. 

Automatic 3. The Automatic Reaction. — If the conditions of the 

choice reaction are kept sufficiently simple, and if the sub- 
ject is held in steady practice for a long period of time, we 
get the first form of what is called the ^ automatic ' reaction, 
an artificial sensorimotor action {cf. § 76). If, e.g., the stim- 
uli are but two in number, and as different from each other 
as a tuning-fork tone and a rap upon a wooden block ; and 
if the movements of response are made by the forefingers of 
the two hands ; then the whole experiment may quite well 
become ^ automatic ' in the course of an investigation which 
demands daily work for some months together. Should 
practice be continued still further, the sensorimotor action 
may degenerate into true automatic or secondary reflex 
movement : this happens more readily with the selective 
than with the volitional reaction. At each stage of the 
descent, the reaction-time undergoes a marked shortening. 

All these forms of the reaction-experiment are 
important. They enable us to introspect complex 
motives under standard conditions, and to trace the 
degeneration of the highest types of action into 
lower types. 

Questions and Exercises 

I. The Compound Reaction. — By help of the side wire, all the 
compound reactions may be taken (in visual form) upon 
Professor Sanford's reaction-timer. 

I. lo The Discrimination Reaction. — Use three known 
stimuli : black, white and grey, or red, yellow and 



Questions and Exercises 263 

blue. Vary the stimulus from experiment to ex- 
periment. Then repeat the experiments with four, 
five, etc., known stimuli. 

I. 2. The Cognition Reaction. — Prepare a series of some 
twenty colours, and one of five brightnesses (from 
black to white, inclusive). Tell the subject that 
he will see 'a colour' or 'a brightness quality.' 

For both these forms of the reaction-experi- 
ment, printed letters (small letters and capitals) 
and words of three or four letters may be used in 
place of the colours and brightnesses. Choose a 
heavy-faced type, with no flourishes to the letters. 
Mount the letters and words separately, upon 
small pieces of white cardboard. 

II. I. a. Selective Discrimination. — Take five known 
brightnesses, and let the subject react to each 
by the movement of a particular finger of the 
right hand. In this experiment the reacting 
hand is not placed upon the upper key before 
the experiment begins, but lies upon the table, 
close beside the instrument. Record the mis- 
taken movements, as well as the correct re- 
actions. Note the influence of practice in 
eliminating mistakes. — Or take ten known 
colours, and assign a particular colour to each 
of the ten fingers. In this case, the subject's 
two hands lie upon the table, at equal distances 
from the key. 

II. I. b. Selective Cognition. — Tell the subject that he 
will see ^a colour.' Let him place his finger 
on the key before the experiment begins. He 
must name the stimulus, and press his key 
down at the moment that he utters the word. 

II. 2. a. Volitional Discri7nination. — Tell the subject that 
he will see either some one of five known colours 
or a neutral grey. He is to respond to the 
colours by moving the appropriate finger of the 
right hand (which lies upon the table) ; he is 
not to move at all in response to the grey. 
Record (i) the finger mistakes (use of second 



264 



The Complex Forms of Action 



for third finger, etc.) and (2) the incorrect 
reactions (movements made in response to 
grey). Note the influence of practice. 

II. 2. b. Volitional Cognition. — Tell the subject that he 
will see either a colour or a neutral grey. He 
is to react to the colours by naming them 
(pressing the key as he speaks) ; he is not to 
react to the grey. 

III. I. Psychomotor Action. — Take two known stimuli, black 
and white. White is to be answered by move- 
ment of the right, black by movement of the left 
hand. Let the subject repeat ^ white — right, black 
— left,' until the connection of ideas is firmly 
established. Continue practice until the selective 
discrimination becomes sensorimotor action. 

III. 2. Automatic Movement. — Continue practice of III. i 

still further. Engage the subject in conver- 
sation during an experimental series, and note 
that he is able to react correctly while 
his attention is diverted from the experi- 
ment. 

Fig. 18 shows a special form of the side wire, 
for use in compound reactions. The upper end 
carries a large metal disc, upon which six stimulus- 
discs of different colour or brightness can be placed. 
By turning the milled edge of the metal disc any 
one of the six stimuli can be brought behind the 
opening of the black screen. A spring catch at 
the back holds the disc in the required position. 

Certain forms of compound reaction to auditory 
stimulus can be carried out on the pattern of the 
association reaction to spoken words (p. 185). 
2. We spoke in § 76 as if the association re- 
action were based directly upon the simple 
sensorial reaction. Is this strictly correct? 
3. Give instances, from history and fiction, (i) of selective action, 
(2) of volitional action and (3) of conflicts of ideas from 
which volitional action might have resulted, but did not, — 
i.e..) of cases in which the no-movement ideas were stronger 
than the impulse to action. 




Fig. 18 



Questions and Exercises 265 

4. Can you illustrate the statement of § 102 that ^instinctive' 

selection is sometimes a better guide to conduct than ^ de- 
liberative ' selection ? 

5. Name some of the automatic movements most commonly 

acquired by civilised man. 

6. What is ^desire'? How does it differ from impulse? 

7. On p. 255 it is said that ^Nature is working behind the 

scenes.'' Can you translate this figure into scientific terms? 

References 

James, Textbook^ pp. 124-126, ch. xxiii. 
Sully, Human Mind, vol. II., ch. xviii. 
Titchener, Outline, §§ 68, 69, 94-97. 
Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XV., XXIX. 
Wundt, Outlines^ § 14. 



CHAPTER XIV 

Abnormal Psychology 

Sleep. § 109. Sleep and Dreams. — The series of waking 

consciousnesses (§ 17) is interrupted, at fairly regular 
intervals, by a period of sleep. From the physiologi- 
cal side, sleep is a rest or recuperation of the whole 
body, and more especially of the nervous system and 
its attachments (sense-organs and muscles). In pro- 
found sleep the brain is comparatively bloodless, and 
therefore inactive. No impressions make their way 
inwards, through the channels of sense, from the 
external world ; no excitations are sent outward to 
the muscles. The muscular system is relaxed, and 
the position that the body assumes is simply a matter 
of the relative weight of its parts {cf. the discussion 
of drowsiness: § 25).-^^. 

Dreaming. During sleep of this profound character, conscious- 

ness seems to lapse altogether: for the time being 
there is no mind; the bodily conditions of mental 
process are not realised. In the lighter stages of 
sleep, on the other hand, we dream. Mental pro- 
cesses appear, and consciousnesses are formed ; the 
outside world finds access to the brain. Sometimes, 
though less often, we walk or talk in our sleep ; 
excitations are sent out from the brain to the mus- 
cles. But the world of the dreamer and of the sleep- 
walker is not the real world of the waking life ; 
their consciousness is abnormal, i.e.^ is in a different 

266 



§110. Origin and Composition of Dreams 267 

state from the waking, attentive or inattentive con- 
sciousness. Dreaming has something in common 
both with attention and with inattention, but is dif- 
ferent from either. We must find out, briefly, how 
dreams arise, and in what their difference from the 
waking consciousness consists, 

§110. The Origin and Composition of Dreams. — It Dreams set 
is generally thought that dreams arise ' inside the JJ^i stimun! 
head,' as the result of some excitement of the brain 
itself. Recent experiments and observations have, 
however, made it practically certain that dreams are 
set up as perceptions are, by the stimulation of some 
sense-organ. After eye or ear or internal organ has 
been stimulated, the brain goes on working indepen- 
dently (law of habit, § 57) ; just as, in the waking life, 
a single perception may start a long train of ideas. 

Since every sense-organ is liable to chance stimu- Dreams 
lation, it follows that dreams may be made of any ^^^ ^^^^' 
kind of sense-material : we may dream in sights 
or in sounds, in strains or in temperatures. As a 
matter of fact, by far the greater number of dreams 
(whatever their stimulus may be) are visual dreams. 
The incoming excitations are translated into visual 
terms (§ 50). If the bodily condition of the dream 
is a stimulation of the temperature organs, we may 
see ourselves ascending Etna or sleighing across an 
ice-field ; if it is a cramped position of the muscles, 
we see an army of crabs advancing to pinch us, or a 
swarm of bees settling to sting ; if it is a taste, we 
see ourselves eating some delicious or disgusting 
food ; and so on. 



268 Abnormal Psychology 

Dream We take every precaution to avoid dreams : we go to 

sleep in a dark and quiet room, we rid ourselves of the 
friction of our clothes, we keep a constant temperature in 
the bedroom, we lie down, etc. Nevertheless, we cannot 
rule out the circulation of blood in the retina and the press- 
ure of the lids upon the eyeballs, the thump of the pulse 
in the vessels of the ear, the slipping down of the bed- 
clothes, the palpitation of the heart, the disturbances of in- 
digestion, etc. Any one of these may serve as the condition 
of a dream. 

Why dreams ^^g reason why the incoming excitations are so often 
translated into terms of sight is twofold. In the first place, 
the eye is extremely sensitive both to slight changes of light 
and to changes in the pressure of the eyelids, the state of 
circulation in the retina, etc. ; and the sensations thus set 
up (sparks, flashes of colour) are reinforced by the cortical 
grey sensation (§ 17). If there were no subjective grey, 
the eye might have no advantage over the ear as a means 
of starting a dream ; if the retina were not so sensitive, the 
subjective grey might lapse during sleep. The two things 
together — excitability of the sense-organ, and excitability 
of the cortex — favour the arousal of visual dreams. In the 
second place, we dream largely in terms of sight for the 
same reason that we remember and imagine largely in terms 
of sight ; the eye is the most important of all the sense- 
organs, the organ most frequently used, and the organ most 
relied upon for knowledge of the outside world. Hence 
the visual centre of the cortex has multitudinous connec- 
tions with all the other brain-centres, and is readily excited 
when any one of them is excited. — It may, of course, be 
questioned whether some dreams, actually experienced in 
other terms, are not translated into terms of sight in the 
waking consciousness, when they are recalled and reported. 

§ III. The Characteristics of the Dream Consciousness. 

— The two chief differences between the dreaming 
and the waking consciousness are ( i ) that the train of 



§ III. Characteristics of Dream Consciousness 269 

dream ideas is disorderly and fantastic in its arrange- 
ment, and (2) that in spite of this disorder the dream 
is taken for granted, and the reality of its incidents 
unquestioned. Both these facts call for explanation. 

(i) The fantastic arrangement of dream ideas is Fantastic 
due to the irregular distribution and limitation of ^f dream 
attention during sleep. Attention is selective ; while i<^^^s. 
one thing is attended to, others are attended from. 
But, in the sleeping cortex, the selection is made at 
hap-hazard ; within very wide limits, every excitation 
has the same chances as every other. The organism is 
free, for a few hours, from the special bias and lean- 
ing (§ 32) given it by the routine of daily employ- 
ment ; there is as much likelihood of a play-channel 
being open as of a work-channel, of a childhood- 
channel as of a recently formed, professional channel. 
Only the oldest and most fundamental formations of 
consciousness — space perception, personal identity, 
etc. — remain throughout. So we have, in dreaming, ^ 

an exaggeration of the flights and fancies of day- 
dreaming and reverie. The ideas that come up are 
all held together by association ; but, since we are 
not attending to any particular topic, the range of 
association, the area of experience from which the 
ideas may arrive, is extraordinarily great. 

Dreams, then, are not entirely disorderly. The law of as- Law of asso- 
sociation holds ; the seeming disorder means simply that the 
range of associated ideas available for a consciousness is much 
larger than usual ; and the range is larger, because no limit 
as to topic, period of time, etc., is set by attention. Nor are 
the bodily tendencies done away with : they are all there, in 
the cortex, so that no one of us could dream his neighbour's 
dreams. The difference is that, in the waking hfe, some 
tendencies are appealed to by daily business, by surroundings, 
etc., while others are left unrealised j whereas in the dream 



ciation m 
dreams. 



2/0 



Abnormal Psychology 



Why dream 
events are 
taken for 
granted. 



consciousness all the tendencies have the same prospect of 
reaHsation. There is nothing to guide the stream of processes, 
no environmental pressure upon the organism ; an excitation 
is as Hkely to run into any one open channel as into any other. 

(2) Our unquestioning acceptance of dream events, 
an acceptance that we are puzzled to account for on 
v^aking, is due to two things. In the first place, we 
have in dreaming no means of testing or checking 
what happens. In the waking life we compare event 
with event ; in the dream there is nothing to compare 
the train of ideas with. In dreaming, e.g., the time 
is always present time ; even if we are interviewing 
Alexander the Great, the interview is occurring now. 
Periods of time are foreshortened in the most arbi- 
trary way : we have the occurrences of a whole day 
in a few seconds, very much as we do in a novel or 
a play. As there is no standard to refer to, there 
can be no question in the dreamer's mind as to the 
possibility or impossibility, the correctness or absurd- 
ity, of the dream scenes. 

In the second place, dream ideas are exceedingly 
vivid and impressive; and this vividness helps to 
make us accept them. If you are aroused in the 
morning by a tapping at your door, and if (as may 
easily happen) the sounds set up a dream before they 
thoroughly awaken you, you dream of thunder or the 
roar of artillery or the crash of a falling house, and 
are astonished when you wake to find how slight the 
intensity of the noise really is. In this respect, the 
dream consciousness resembles (or rather counterfeits) 
the attentive consciousness of the waking life. One 
of the principal marks of the state of attention is the 
clearness and vividness of the idea attended to. 



§ 112. Hypnotism 271 

We take our dreams for granted, then, because we 
have nothing to compare them with, and because they 
are made up of clear and vivid ideas. 

The physiological conditions of dreaming are but little The cortical 

understood. There must, apparently, be local and sporadic conditions oi 
.... ^ rx- -IT . 1 dreaming. 

activity in the cortex, at the same time that there is general 
inactivity. The coordination of the cortex by means of the 
centre for touch and organic sensation (p. 225) is disturbed ; 
the visual centre is in most cases more or less active. 

The lack of cortical coordination means the lack of guid- 
ance of the train of ideas, /.(?., the absence of steady or 
sustained attention. The local and sporadic character of 
the excitement explains the fact that we have in dreaming 
no standard of comparison ; the ideas come in single file, 
and are passively accepted as they come. It is not easy to 
account for the vividness of the ideas ; perhaps the absence 
of background, of perspective, gives them a factitious value, 
— much as we take a fly close to the eye for a crow 
seen at a distance. Lastly, the reason that we do not 
habitually talk and walk when we dream must be sought in 
a blocking of the nerve-paths that lead from the sensory to 
the motor centres, or from these to the muscles. If we had, 
in the waking Ufe, ideas that even approached the dream 
ideas in vividness, we should undoubtedly move; there 
would be ideomotor action. Hence the problem is, not 
why we sleep-walk, but why we do not. 

§ 112. Hypnotism. — The word ' hypnotism ' is the 
general name for a group of abnormal phenomena, 
bodily and mental, many of which bear a close exter- 
nal resemblance to the phenomena of sleep and 
sleep-walking. The symptoms of the hypnotic state 
differ, not inconsiderably, in different cases. In 
general, however, three stages or phases of hypnosis 
may be distinguished. They are as follows. 

(i) Preliminary Stage, — The subject is heavy or drowsy. The three 
His behaviour is very like that of a man just aroused from stages of 
sound sleep, and not yet ^ come to himself.' ypnosis. 



2/2 Abnormal Psychology 

(2) Light Hypnosis or Catalepsy, — The subject is to 
some extent anaesthetic, insensitive ; his sense-organs are 
closed to all the ordinary impressions from the outside world. 
At the same time, he hears what is said to him by the opera- 
tor, and performs any action that he is commanded. He 
can do nothing without the word of command ; so that he 
will maintain a position, however uncomfortable, until the 
order comes to relax it. On waking, he remembers cloudily 
what took place during hypnosis. 

(3) Profound Hypnosis or Somnambulism. — The anaes- 
thesia becomes more complete ; and the subject not only 
acts but perceives at the bidding of the operator. On wak- 
ing, he has no memory of what has taken place. 

In the second stage, e.g.^ the arm of a subject may be pricked 
with needles, and there will be no indication that either pressure 
or pain has been perceived ; the skin is anaesthetic. Or the sub- 
ject may be laid out at full length upon a row of chairs, and these 
all removed except the two that support head and heels. He 
will remain motionless, in this tense attitude, until released by 
the operator. In the third stage, he perceives whatever he is 
told to perceive : takes coal for sugar, ink for wine, tapping on 
the table for the playing of a violin, etc. 

Hypnotic phenomena have attracted much atten- 
tion, of late years, from psychologists and physicians. 
We have to-day a pretty complete understanding of 
them on the psychological side, though their full 
explanation will be impossible until our knowledge 
of brain physiology has advanced far beyond its 
present limits. 

The word ^hypnotism' (Gk. hypnos, sleep) was coined by 
James Braid (i 795-1 860), an English surgeon who wrote much 
on hypnotic phenomena in the forties. Braid's books are still 
well worth consulting by the student of hypnosis. 

§ 113. The Conditions of Hypnosis. — The question 
of the mental conditions of the hypnotic state falls 



':r ! 



§ 113. The Conditions of Hypnosis 273 



into two part-questions : What makes one hypnotis- 
able ? and: How much has the operator to do with 
the production of the hypnotic state ? We will con- 
sider them separately. 

(i) The sole condition of hypnosis, in one's own Hypnosis an 
mind, is an entirely rapt or absorbed attention to attention, 
some particular person or thing. The depth of this 
attention surpasses that of any of the three phases of 
the normal attentive state (passive, active and second- 
ary passive attention) ; there is a total * surrender of 
the will,' as the popular phrase goes, to the person 
or thing attended to. 

The hypnotic consciousness, then, resembles the dream 
consciousness in the fact that its ideas come singly, one 
after another ; only one part of the cortex is in active 
function. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. In 
dreaming, there is fitful, scattered attention; in hypnosis, an 
exaggeratedly sustained and concentrated passive attention. 



1 



a 



Fig. 19 shows the dream and hypnotic consciousnesses, after 
the pattern of Fig. 10. The stream 
of consciousness flows out of the 
paper, towards the reader. In <7, the 
dream consciousness, we have a single, 
narrow wave ; the greater part of the. 
bed of the stream is dry. The wave 
is nearly as high as the attention- 
wave in Fig. \o b. Below we have 
the hypnotic consciousness ; a state 
of extreme attention, with the level 
of the ideas attended from depressed 
almost to disappearance. 



Fig. 19 



)S1S. 



(2) The 'influence' that the operator has over the Hypnosis 

T».. * r\ • 1* 7^1 1*^ nr*! 3,lW3,VS S6ll- 

subject IS an mfluence given him by the subject. 1 he ^ypnoj 
condition of hypnosis lies in the subject, not in the 
personality of some other man. The operator has, 

T 



274 Abnormal Psychology 

it is true, two advantages. He asserts emphatically 
that he * can hypnotise ' ; and we all tend to believe 
an emphatic assertion, however groundless it may be. 
So we give him an influence over us, even before we 
have seen him. And the operator knows, from long 
experience with hypnotised subjects, how we shall 
most easily fall into the hypnotic state, how, i,e., 
our complete attention can best be secured : whether 
by coaxing or by bullying, whether by strokings that 
suggest the gradual flow of a power from him or by 
a smart stroke on the back of the neck that confuses 
us for a moment, etc. All the ' methods ' of hypno- 
tising are so many tricks to bring about the state of 
rapt and absorbed attention in the subject's mind. 

Three corollaries follow from this statement of the condi- 
tions of hypnosis. 

(^) The presence of the operator is not required ; one 
can hypnotise oneself. It is only necessary to close the 
channels of sense against the variety of outside impres- 
sions (by sitting in a dark room, listening steadily to a 
faint sound, etc.), and to attend fixedly to the idea that 
one will fall into the hypnotic state : hypnosis results. This 
process is termed self-suggestion or autosuggestion, 

{b) Any normal person can be hypnotised, just as any 
normal person can dream. Only young children and idiots, 
who are * scatter-brained,' incapable of concentrated atten- 
tion, are also incapable of hypnotisation. People differ in 
liabiHty to hypnosis, as they do in liability to dreaming ; but 
the difference is merely one of degree. 

{c) Animals could be hypnotised, if they could be brought 
for a moment into the state of extreme attention. Indeed, 
by thoroughly and suddenly frightening an animal, one can 
set up a state (known as cataplexy) which is, at least, very 
similar to the hypnotic state. Seize a frog unexpectedly by 



§ 1 14- Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis 275 

a hind leg, as a heron would seize it : instead of struggling 
to escape, the frog becomes rigid, and remains perfectly- 
quiet. 

§ 1 14. Some Debated ftuestions of Hypnosis. — There 
are four topics, much discussed in the literature 
of hypnotism, about which it may be well to say a 
few words here. They are rapport and suggestion, 
double consciousness, terminal suggestion and the 
therapeutic value of hypnosis. 

(i) All the phenomena of hypnosis can be summed Suggestion 
up in the single word suggestion. The operator sug- 
gests to the subject what he is to see and do; the 
subject suggests to himself that he shall enter the 
hypnotic state. We have already had instances of 
suggestion in the Exercises appended to Chapter II. 
{cf § 88). 

Now it may easily happen, after the subject has Rapport, 
acquired a general belief in the ' powers ' of a par- 
ticular operator, that he passes to a very special 
belief in these powers. He believes — either be- 
cause the operator has ' suggested ' it to him, or 
because he has ^suggested' it to himself — that no 
one but this operator can hypnotise him. It then 
follows, of course, that the required concentration of 
attention can be secured only when the operator is 
present. Thus arises the rapport^ as it is called, 
between hypnotiser and hypnotised. 

In other words, the rapport consists in an insistent belief, 
in the subject's mind, that one and only one man can hyp- 
notise him. There is nothing mysterious about it, any more 
than there would be about the contrary belief that a certain 
man could not hypnotise him. The rapport is often set up 



sciousness. 



276 Abnormal Psychology 

by physicians, with patients who are undergoing hypnotic 
treatment, to avoid interference in the case by other oper- 
ators. 

Double con- (2) Wc havc sccn that the subject who is aroused 
from the somnambulistic state has no memory of 
what has taken place during hypnosis. Oftentimes, 
however, memory is carried over from hypnosis to 
hypnosis; i.e.^ the subject, when rehypnotised, re- 
members what he saw and did in the previous state 
of somnambulism. We thus have an alternation of 
memories : waking memory, hypnosis, waking mem- 
ory continued, hypnotic memory continued, waking 
memory again, hypnotic memory again, and so on. 
This phenomenon has received the name of double 
consciousness, and has been explained by the hypo- 
thesis that there are two * selves ' to every body, a 
primary (waking) self and a secondary (trance) self. 
The hypothesis is unnecessary. When we wake, 
whether from somnambulism or dreaming, we wake 
into a different world from that in which we have 
been ; the functions of the cortex are altered ; there 
is no reason why v/e should remember from the one 
state to the other. When we fall asleep again, or 
are rehypnotised, we go back into the unreal world ; 
the cortex takes on its former functions once more ; 
there is no reason why we should not remember 
from the one state to the other. 

Everyone knows how easily dreams are forgotten on 
waking. And most readers have, probably, had the experi- 
ence of a continuous dream, a dream that is continued from 
night to night. The reason that dreams are not more often 
continuous is that there is no regulation of the dream, con- 



§ 114. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis 277 

sciousness by attention ; hence the course of the train of 
ideas may be deflected by the accidental stimulation of 
the moment. 

The first time that the author ' took gas ' for a dental operation, 
he had a vivid and detailed dream. He has taken gas on three 
subsequent occasions ; and each time the same dream has been 
repeated and continued. The incidents of the first dream can 
be traced to certain experiences of the waking life : so that it 
would be absurd to speak, in this case, of a double conscious- 
ness. Yet the continuance of memory from somnambulism to 
somnambulism is precisely parallel. 

(3) If the operator suggests to a subject in the Terminal 
somnambulistic state that he do something so long ^^^^^^^ 
after waking, — e.g., break a pane of glass at five 
o'clock, — the action is usually performed. Such a 
command is called a terminal suggestion. 

The explanation is that the operator's suggestion 
of the time at which the action shall be done serves 
as a bridge between the hypnotic and the waking 
consciousnesses. The time-idea is common to both. 
Hence, when the time comes round, the subject 
relapses (by association) into the hypnotic state, and 
obeys the suggestion. In the case of double con- 
sciousness, just discussed, no bridge has been built 
by the operator between the real and the unreal 
worlds. 

(4) We come, lastly, to the question whether hyp- Hypnosis as 
nosis can be employed as a curative agent in the ^icagent^^" 
treatment of disease. The answer seems to be that 

{a) derangements of circulation and secretion, and 
{h) habits like alcoholism, can be remedied and 
removed by hypnotic therapeutics. Just as a ' sug- 
gestion ' will make us blush (circulation) or cry 



278 Abnormal Psychology 

(secretion) in the waking life, so will the stranger 
suggestion of the somnambulistic stage work greater 
changes in blood-supply and glandular action. And 
just as a sharp rebuke will keep a child from repeat- 
ing an offence, so will suggestion restrain the drunk- 
ard and the morphine taker. On the other hand, 
(^) no amount of suggestion will cure typhoid fever 
or a broken leg ; it is only functional disturbances 
that hypnosis can cope with. Nor is hypnotism 
of much use (^) as an anaesthetic ; chloroform 
has stood the test of hospital practice far better. 
Finally, {e) even at the best there are grave dangers 
connected with the therapeutic employment of hyp- 
nosis. The patient is always liable to suffer relapse ; 
in time, he may fall a prey to a ' hypnotic habit ' as 
afflicting as the alcohol or morphine habit of which 
he has been cured ; and it has been observed, in 
some instances, that the unhesitating acceptance of 
the physician's suggestion has led to an equally un- 
hesitating acceptance of all statements, so that the 
patient loses power to distinguish between the proba- 
ble and the improbable, and believes fables. — On the 
whole, then, it may be doubted whether the remedy 
is not as bad as the disease. 

Mental § US- Insanity and its Conditions. — There is a 

pa oogy. gj-gg^j- difference between dreaming and hypnosis, on 
the one hand, and insanity, on the other, although 
all three sets of phenomena fall under the general 
heading of 'abnormal psychology.' Dreaming and 
hypnosis are abnormal states of a normal mind ; 
they show a deviation from the rule or norm of 



§ 115. Insanity and its Conditions 279 

function in a sound cortex. Insanity, on the other 
hand, is the sign of an unsound cortex, of a diseased 
or 'pathological* state of the brain. Hence while 
the discussion of dreams and hypnotism forms a sort 
of appendix to normal psychology, the discussion of 
insanity, in all its various modes, begins with the 
consideration of temporary disturbances of cortical 
action (dreaming, hypnosis, intoxication) and then 
runs parallel with the discussion of the normal mind : 
disorders of perception, of idea, of association, of 
emotion, of action, etc., are taken up in turn. It is 
clear from this that the subject is far too extensive 
for us to offer any adequate treatment of it here : 
the psychology of insanity, like child psychology and 
ethnic psychology (§§ 118, 120), requires a book to 
itself. We can do no more than note, in outline, 
the conditions of mental derangement and the typi- 
cal forms which insanity assumes. 

It is important to understand the difference between a 
pathological state, and a state of temporary deviation from 
the norm in an otherwise sound brain. We may say, per- 
haps, that dreaming and hypnosis stand to insanity as a 
sluggish liver stands to small-pox or a crushed foot ; as 
occasional alcoholic intoxication, with its elevation of mind, 
thickness of speech and unsteady gait, stands to the maud- 
lin besottedness and incapacity of the habitual drunkard ; 
or as the tiredness of an athlete after severe exercise stands 
to the feeble inertness of old age. We shall, indeed, not 
be far wrong if, summing up in a single word, we describe 
the difference as that between a derangement of function 
and a derangement of structuj^e. 

The conditions of insanity are usually stated to be Heredity 

3.Tid stress 

of two kinds : heredity and stress. We may inherit 



28o Abnormal Psychology 

a badly made brain, a brain loosely put together of 
unstable tissue. In that case, a very slight shock 
will destroy our mental balance. As Dr. Mercier 
says : "A jerry-built villa is liable to be blown down 
by a storm of wind, but nothing short of an earth- 
quake will destroy a well-constructed mansion." On 
the other hand, we may inherit a fairly well made 
brain, but the storm and stress of life may prove too 
much for us : in this case, too, we lose our sanity. 

It is clear that these two factors must be sharply 
distinguished whenever we are attempting to give 
the conditions of a particular case of insanity. If I 
am trying to find out what drove John Smith mad, 
I must enquire (i) whether any marked tendency to 
insanity is shown by his family records, whether his 
brothers and parents and grandparents give evidence 
of * good ' or * bad ' heredity, and (2) whether his own 
life has been peaceful or stormy. But it is equally 
clear that, regarded historically, the two reduce to 
one : the badly made brain that is inherited by John 
Smith is due, in the last resort, to the stress laid 
upon his ancestry. Stress, then, is the general con- 
dition of insanity. 

Kinds of The stresses that condition insanity are classified by Dr. 

stress. Mercier as follows : 

(i) Direct Stresses.— ''^Xo^ns on the head, inflammation of the 
brain, the escape of blood into the rigid chamber of 
the skull, the pressure of a tumour [on the brain tissue], 
the ploughing-up of the brain-tissue by a clot, change in the 
composition of the blood [circulating in the brain],' etc. 

(2) Indirect Stresses. 

{a) Internal. — ^Puberty, pregnancy, ulcer of stomach, tu- 
berculosis of lung,' etc. 



§ ii6. The Chief Forms of Insanity 281 

(J?) External. — ' Adverse circumstances, worries, anxieties, 
troubles of various kinds.' 

§ 1 16. The Chief Forms of Insanity. — No two cases insanity 
of insanity are precisely alike, just as no two normal ^^e^^iM 
minds are precisely alike. Hence any scheme or study, 
classification of the typical forms of insanity must 
be a very rough and approximate affair; it will be 
useful to the psychologist merely as furnishing a 
sketch-map of a complicated and little explored 
region, and to the alienist merely as affording a 
means of pigeon-holing cases that are more or less 
similar. Accurate and scientific knowledge of the 
insane mind can come only by way of the detailed 
study of individual cases. 

For our present purpose it will suffice to give a 
* working' list of the forms of insanity. The reader 
should be warned that the use of terms differs con- 
siderably in different authorities. 

I. Insanity as Imperfect Development. The chief 

Under this head come the cases which rise, progressively, f^°^"^s of 
from weak-mindedness through imbecility to idiocy. The 
idiot must be constantly looked after, as if he were a little 
child ; he cannot learn to adjust himself to his surround- 
ings. "If left by himself he will set himself on fire, or 
fall into the water, or cut himself, or get entangled in a 
machine, or come to some actual physical harm which could 
have been avoided by the exercise of rudimentary intelli- 
gence" (Mercier). The imbecile can do ^odd jobs,' but is 
unable to plan or perform continuous work. 

II. Insanity as Misdirected Development and Degeneration. 

Under this head come the typical cases of insanity that 
are found in asylums : mania, melancholia, dementia, gen- 
eral paresis. 
(i) Mania is marked by mental exaltation; the maniac is 
restless, excitable, voluble, enthusiastic. It culminates 



282 Abnormal Psychology 

in acute delirium. Certain stages are characterised 
by delusions of grandeur. 

(2) Melancholia is marked by mental depression ; the mel- 

ancholiac is inert, despondent, incapable of exertion, 
possessed by the idea of his sorrows. It culminates 
in stuporous melancholia. Certain stages are char- 
acterised by delusions of persecution, etc. 

(3) Dementia is marked by a mental enfeeblement ; the 

dement is stupid, apathetic, helpless. It may appear 
as the direct result of stress (primary dementia) or as 
a consequence of mania or melancholia (terminal 
dementia) . 

(4) General paresis^ or progressive paralytic dementia, begins 

very much as alcoholic intoxication begins : with im- 
pairment of memory, quick changes of mood, exalta- 
tion of mind, hesitancy of speech, loss of facial expres- 
sion. Then come delusions of grandeur, maniacal 
fits, unruffled self-satisfaction ; and, on the motor 
side, laboured and interrupted speech, scratchy hand- 
writing, staggering gait. Finally, the patient becomes 
bedridden ; he cannot turn himself, and can hardly 
swallow; mentality seems to cease altogether.— General 
paresis thus shows a gradual decay of the whole nervous 
system, from above downwards. 
A form of mania that is peculiarly dangerous to the 
community is epileptic mania. The patient is liable to 
violent maniacal outbursts between the epileptic fits. 

The name of paranoia or delusional insanity is some- 
times used for cases in which there are systematised 
delusions of grandeur or persecution, but no further im- 
pairment of mental function. These cases fall under the 
general heads of mania and melancholia. 

Circular insanity is a form of insanity in which mania 
alternates with melancholia, with or without the interposi- 
tion of periods of sanity. 

The study of Such a list as this is very far from being psycho- 

insani y. logically Satisfactory ; it is hardly more than a table 

of contents, with all the reading to follow. The 

facts studied in abnormal psychology are matters 



§ ii6. The Chief Forms of Insanity 283 

of detail ; the progressive impairment of speech, of 
handwriting, etc. ; the advance of a particular de- 
lusion ; the gradual fall from a higher mental level 
to a lower as shown by defects of recognition, mem- 
ory, judgment, etc. ; the phenomena of substitution 
(the recovery of a lost function by the use of parts 
of the brain which are normally employed in other 
directions), and so forth. 

Let us take as an example the case of what is called aphasia^ Aphasia, 
loss of language. Aphasia may be produced under various con- 
ditions, and show itself in various ways. Three principal forms 
have been distinguished. 

(i) Sensory or Amnesic Aphasia. — The patient can see 
printed or written words, but cannot understand, i.e., assimilate 
them ; he is in the state of a child, before it has learned to read. 
He can, however, write from dictation ; he can even write out 
his own ideas : but in neither case does he understand what he 
has written. This is word-blindjiess. 

Or again : the patient can hear words, but cannot understand 
them ; he is in the state of a child, before it has learned to 
understand what is said in its presence. There is this difference, 
however : the patient can read, can speak and can write ; the 
only thing that fails him is the assimilation of heard words. 
This is word-deafness. 

(2) Motor or Ataxic Aphasia. — The patient can understand 
written or spoken words, but cannot articulate. This is pure 
motor aphasia. 

Or again : he can understand, and can articulate ; but cannot 
write what he wishes to write. This is agraphia. 

(3) Sensori-fnotor Aphasia or Paraphasia. — The patient can 
understand what he sees and hears, and has the power to write 
and to articulate, but has ^ forgotten how ' to use voice and hand. 
His spoken and written signs, therefore, do not correspond to 
his ideas. Wishing to say: " Take that light out of my eyes!" 
he says : " Clean my boots by walking on them! " — and so on. 

This classification is by no means complete ; Dr. Bateman, in 
his book " On Aphasia or Loss of Speech," distinguishes no less 
than fifteen varieties of aphasia. It may be chronic or intermit- 



284 Abnormal Psychology 

tent ; the loss may be loss of substantives^ or of proper names, 
or of a few words, or of certain letters ; one word may be substi- 
tuted for another ; a particular phrase or series of syllables may 
be used on all occasions in all meanings ; the patient may be 
unable to name an object unless he can trace the outline of the 
written word with his finger or foot or tongue ; objective speech 
may be lost, but subjective speech (oaths and interjections : §88) 
remain ; etc., etc. 

It is clear that the detailed study of single cases of aphasia 
may throw light upon the mechanism of thought and of the asso- 
ciation of ideas in the normal mind, — especially if the results of 
psychopathological observation be compared with those of brain 
physiology (Flechsig's scheme of the cortical centres) . 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) On waking from a visual dream, keep your eyes closed, 
and scrutinise the dots and splashes of colour that are sprinkled 
over the dark field. You will find that they correspond roughly 
in form and arrangement to the figures of the dream-scene. 
What does this prove ? 

(2) Write out a vivid dream, while it is fresh in your memory. 
Then work it over, and try to account for the sequence of ideas 
by the law of association. 

(3) Watch your dreams for a week, and note whether they are 
all visual, or whether sounds, etc., occur in them. During the 
following week, fix your attention steadily, before you go to sleep, 
upon a certain sound, taste, smell, etc. ; and note whether sounds, 
tastes, smells, etc., occur afterwards among the dream-ideas. 

(4) The most general way in which mental derangement shows 
itself is in ^ defective concentration of the attention ' (Wundt) . 
Apply this rule to the various forms of insanity described in 
§116. Draw diagrams of the typical insane consciousnesses, 
after the pattern of Figs. 10 and 19. 

(5) * What strikes one most, on going through an asylum for 
the first time, is the wonderfully little difference, whether in looks 
or in conduct, that there is between the insane and the sane.' 
How is this possible ? 

(6) How do you explain the fact that certain butterflies, 
spiders, etc., ^ sham dead ' when taken in the hand 1 And the 
similar fact that birds are ' fascinated ' by snakes ? 



Questions and Exercises 285 

(7) What period of life may be said to show a ^ normal mania' 
and what a ^normal dementia '? 

(8) What could a psychologist gain from an investigation of 
the expressive movements of deaf-mutes? (C/i § 88.) 

(9) For the most part, ' dreams are easily forgotten.' Yet 
some dreams are remembered, and remembered for a long time. 
Under what conditions does this happen ? 

References 

James, Textbook^ chs. viii., xii., xviii. (p. 301), xix. (pp. 308-310), 

xxiii. 
C. Mercier, Sanity and Insanity^ 1890. 
A. Moll, Hypnotism^ 1891. 

Sully, Human Mind, vol. II., ch. xix. ; and see refs. in Index. 
Wundt, Lectures, pp. 316-322, Lect. XXII. 
Wundt, Outlines, § J 8. 
J. Wyllie, The Disorders of Speech, 1894. 



CHAPTER XV 



The Province and the Relations of Psychology 



The various 
psychologies. 



Our own 
mind the 
standard of 
reference. 



§ 117. The Scope of Psychology. — When we stated 
the problem of psychology, in § 9, we said that it 
would be impossible to treat of all the questions that 
confront the psychologist within the limits of a sin- 
gle volume {cf. § 115). And the first thirteen Chap- 
ters of this book have been confined to one special 
set of psychological problems : the problems of nor- 
mal, adult, human, individual psychology. In the 
last Chapter we have seen that over against normal 
psychology there stands a psychology of the abnor- 
mal mind, the facts of which must be explained in 
the light of the normal consciousness {cf. the ex- 
planation of hypnosis), while they, in turn, throw 
light on certain complicated phases of the normal 
mental life (cf. the facts of aphasia). The same 
thing holds of the other aspects of the psychology 
which we have reviewed. Over against adult psy- 
chology stand the psychologies of childhood and old 
age ; over against human stands animal psychology ; 
and over against individual stands ethnic psychology 
iff. §§ 6, 9). 

It must not be supposed, however, that all these 
branches of psychology are equally independent, or 
equally far advanced. In the first place, no one of 
them can be pursued successfully unless the student 
have a knowledge of the psychology with which this 

286 



.^1 



§ 11/. The Scope of Psychology 287 

book has mainly dealt. The normal mind of the 
civilised man is the standard of reference in all 
psychology. We can explain the minds of children, 
animals, societies, only by comparing what we know 
of them with the corresponding facts of the stand- 
ard mind. This truth cannot be too strongly em- 
phasised : psychological study must begin as the 
study of the normal adult mind by the method of 
experimental introspection. To enter upon child 
study, e.g,^ without any such preparation, is to set 
about surveying a plot of ground before one has a 
unit of measurement. 

Secondly, we know very much more about the nor- Scientific 
mal adult mind than about the minds of the insane, ^^^^ 
or of children and animals. This is natural : the only 
mind that a psychologist can observe directly is his 
own, a normal adult mind ; all other minds must be 
observed indirectly, and (as has just been said) ex- 
plained in the light of the standard mind. So it hap- 
pens that these side departments of psychology have 
as yet been less thoroughly explored. Abnormal 
psychology has, undoubtedly, made most progress. 
Animal psychology is little more, at present, than 
a method and a string of facts. Child psychology 
and ethnic psychology consist of observations, new- 
made or gleaned from history, which are brought 
with more or less of probability under the accepted 
laws of biological evolution. * Scientific ' psychology 
is, therefore, normal adult psychology ; the other 
psychologies promise to be sciences, possess the ma- 
terials out of which sciences may be formed, but have 
not so far attained to scientific rank. 



288 Province and Relations of Psychology 



Two 

branches 
of child 
psychology. 



The reader will now understand how it is that a work 
dealing with the normal adult mind can be termed a work 
on ^psychology/ without qualification. This psychology is 
the psychology, scientific and standard psychology. The 
other psychologies must be marked off from it by adjec- 
tives as ' ethnic/ ' senile/ etc., psychology. 

§ 1 1 8. Child Psychology. — The literature of child 
psychology may.be roughly divided into two parts. 
On the one hand we have records of the mental 
development of particular children ; records which 
begin with birth, and are continued for months or 
years. On the other, we have statistical enquiries 
into the memory, imagination, etc., of school chil- 
dren, taken in classes and arranged in groups accord- 
ing to age and sex. In some cases, the material 
obtained is turned by the author to genetic account : 
that is, an attempt is made to trace the development 
of mind, the growing complexity of mental pro- 
cesses, and, perhaps, to parallel it with the fully 
formed mind of the animal or the savage, or correlate 
it with the increasing complexity of the bodily func- 
tions during the same period of life. 

Child records of the first sort seem to begin with the Swiss 
educator, J. H. Pestalozzi (1746-1827), who kept a journal of the 
sayings and doings of his son from about the fourth year on. 
Charles Darwin published in 1877 his "Biographical Sketch of 
an Infant" (^Mind, vol. II.), which he had written down in 1840. 
It contains minute observations of the conduct of one of the 
writer's sons, and especially of the movements that expressed the 
child's emotions, from birth up to the middle of the third year. 
Several similar records have now been published, as well as ob- 
servations of a more limited character (on the development of 
children's drawings, the growth of colour-discrimination, etc.). 

Child studies of the second kind include enquiries into the 
contents of a child's mind, i.e.^ its stock of ideas and beliefs, on 



§ Ii8. Child Psychology 289 

entering school ; into the mental fatigue brought on by school 
work ; into the child's ability to recognise tones, to estimate and 
remember the length of lines, etc. ; into the instinctive fears of 
childhood; into the development of language and the appear- 
ance of self-consciousness in children ; into children's lies ; into 
the range of the childish imagination, etc. 

Mental fatigue, e.g.^ has been investigated in five v^^ays. Investigation 
(i) Arithmetical Method. The children are required to solve of fatigue 
simple arithmetical problems, at the beginning of the morning school hours 
and at the end of each school hour. The solutions handed in 
at the different times are compared with regard to quickness and 
accuracy of work. (2) Memory Method. Series of words are 
read aloud by the teacher, at similar intervals, and written down 
by the children from memory. (3) Riddle Method. Printed pages 
of simple narrative are prepared, with words and syllables omitted 
here and there. The children are required to fill out the blank 
spaces, according to the sense of the narrative. (4) Method of 
Cutaneous Space Perception. The experiment described as no. 6, 
p. 118, is performed at intervals, and the results of the trials 
compared. (5) Ergographic Method. Finger movements are 
repeated (and recorded) until muscular exhaustion sets in. Fa- 
tigue of the voluntary muscles is thus made an index of mental 
fatigue. 

Some part of this literature has the true scientific Twodeside- 
flavour; much more of it is useful, as crude psy- ^s^^choio^^^^ 
chological material ; much, however, is scientifically 
worthless, owing to the observer's lack of psycho- 
logical training. Two things are now wanted in 
child psychology : first, many more detailed studies 
of individual children, from birth onwards; and, 
secondly, a thorough study of the child mind from 
above downwards, — i.e., from the youth of, say, 
sixteen down to the infant. We do not know at 
what age introspection becomes possible : but it is 
certainly possible at sixteen. Working from that 
age downwards, we should pass through all stages : 
u 



290 Province and Relations of Psychology 



Child and 

adult 

psychology. 



The old 
animal psy- 
chology 



from an introspection that is adequate to any mental 
process, however complex, to an introspection that 
can cope only with the simpler associations and 
perceptions ; and from this, again, to total lack of 
introspection, — to the stage at which reliance must 
be placed upon the observer's interpretation of the 
movements that express feeling and idea, and no 
assistance at all can be obtained from the subject. 

Something of value for child psychology may be gained, 
perhaps, from the study of reminiscent autobiographies 
(J. S. Mill, Tolstoi, Loti) and of artistic interpretations of 
childhood (Pater, Dickens, Goethe). But it is very diffi- 
cult, in such cases, to distinguish the Wahrheit from the 
Dichtung, 

How far child psychology will be able to repay its 
debt to standard psychology, — how much a know, 
ledge of it will eventually contribute towards the 
understanding of the adult mind, — cannot be cer- 
tainly predicted. But the genetic method has proved 
fruitful in many departments of scientific enquiry ; 
and as psychology is how a science, and each and 
every division of it may be approached by scientific 
methods, we are apparently justified in expecting that 
the study of the child consciousness will, sooner or 
later, yield results of high psychological value. In- 
deed, such a belief is almost forced upon us, when we 
remember that the child mind is the direct precursor 
of the adult mind, the one passing into the other in 
an unbroken continuity of mental experience. 

§ 1 19. Animal Psychology. — ** The question whether 
or not the animals possess a mind," wrote a philoso- 
pher of eminence in the first half of the eighteenth 



§ iig. Animal Psychology 291 

century, "is a question of no particular importance: 
I shall not dispute it, but leave the reader undisturbed 
in his own opinion." While the professional psy- 
chologists gave small attention to the matter, however, 
anecdotes of animal intelligence were industriously col- 
lected by the laity, — by amateur students of natural 
history and by the possessors of pet animals. To these 
collections the modern psychologist has fallen heir; 
but the inaccuracy of the observations, and the inter- 
mingling of fact with popular psychology which char- 
acterises them, render the legacy well-nigh valueless. 

On the other hand, there is now good hope that and the new, 
animal psychology, learning the lesson of scientific 
caution from current investigation of the human 
mind, will gradually raise itself to the dignity of a 
science. The importance of the study, in view of 
the general doctrine of evolution, is very great, and 
many workers have recently been attracted to it. 
Two results have followed. 

(i) It is being recognised that animal psychology Modern 

work 

must be built up from detailed enquiries, not from 
a survey of the whole field of * instinct' or 'intelli- 
gence ' ; that the work must be done under the con- 
ditions natural to the animal ; and that the separate 
facts must be impartially recorded, without any pre- 
conceived theories of their meaning. Thus we have 
monographs dealing with the actions of single-celled 
organisms (§ 74), with the behaviour of newly hatched 
birds and new-born mammals, with the movements 
that express emotion (p. 16 step}) and impulse in ani- 
mals, etc. All this is good material. 

(2) Along with the change in method of observa- method. 



292 P^'ovince and Relations of Psychology 

tion has come a change in method of interpretation. 
The actions of animals must be interpreted in the 
hght of human actions, by reference to human psy- 
chology ; and every action must be interpreted as 
simply as possible. Nothing must be taken as evi- 
dence of judgment which can in any way be explained 
by association of ideas ; nothing ascribed to active 
imagination which can be accounted for by passive. 
This is a sound method, and has already borne fruit. 
Among other things, it has given us a more correct 
appreciation of the phenomena of instinct (^ 75) than 
was possible for the older psychology. 

It may seem, at first sight, that the method is unfair; 
that the animal should have the benefit of the doubt in 
cases where an action is observed whose motive, in man, 
might be either judgment-impulse or simple impulse. The 
supposed unfairness disappears, however, when we look at 
a test case, like that of articulate speech. If the higher 
animals, despite their power of articulation, have never 
developed a spoken language, that must be because they 
have nothing to say ; and if they have nothing to say, their 
minds are on an altogether lower level than ours. Hence, 
on the assumption that the animal and the human mind 
represent different phases of the same course of evolution, 
it is entirely reasonable to believe that the former ^ works ' 
in the simplest possible way. The belief is confirmed, if 
confirmation is necessary, by the fact (insisted on in Ch. 
XI.) that men, who can think, rarely do so ; they take mental 
short cuts, borrowed associations, whenever they find them 
to hand. But if we shun mental effort, all the more do the 
animals avoid it. 

Processes of § 120. Ethnlc Psychology. — Ethnic psychology is 

mLd''^^^''^'''^ the psychology of a 'collective' mind, i.e., of the 

mental processes that are set up by the communion 



§ 120. Ethnic Psychology 293 

of individual minds ; the psychology of a race or 
society or professional class, as distinguished from 
the psychology of the individual, child or man. It 
need hardly be said that the elementary processes 
of the individual and collective minds are the same : 
the collective mind has no existence apart from the 
minds of the separate members of the community. 
But when many individual minds come into contact, 
new complex processes take shape ; the elementary 
processes are put together as they would not have 
been had mankind lived solitary lives. 

The problem of ethnic psychology, then, is to The problem 
trace the development of these new mental com- psychology, 
plexes, and to explain them by reference to the 
conditions of social living. A good deal has been 
done towards the solution of this problem : scattered 
discussions will be found in works upon history, an- 
thropology, jurisprudence, philology and aesthetics, 
as well as in the psychologies. It cannot be said, 
however, that ethnic psychology exists to-day as a 
science; there is no special group of books devoted 
exclusively to it, as there is, e.g,^ to mental pathology, 
child psychology and animal psychology. 

Ethnic psychology has four main divisions. It 
has to deal (i) with the growth of language. We Language. 
have already spoken of the importance of language 
to psychology in § 88, which thus anticipates the 
present Section. It has to deal (2) with the develop- 
ment of myth. The primitive myth, the story told of Myth. 
gods made in the image of man, is the germ both of 
religion and of science. Myth also afforded mate- 
rial for art. 



294 Province and Relations of Psychology 

Anthropo- Primitive man looked upon his surroundings from a purely 

morphism of human Standpoint ; that is, he made men of all the objects 

primitive . . 

man. around him. If a stone tripped him, it was an enemy that 

lay in wait for him in the shape of a stone ; if a bough 
struck him, the enemy had taken the form of a tree to sur- 
prise him. The gods were simply men of more than human 
power. Sometimes they were dead chiefs, haunting the 
places that they frequented during life, and revealing their 
will in dreams ; sometimes they were embodied in the vari- 
ous phenomena of nature, the storm-cloud, the wind, the 
sun, etc. Only by very slow degrees was the knowledge 
attained that the course of nature is not capricious but 
uniform ; that there are laws of natural events. And not 
till this knowledge had been acquired was any separation 
made between natural science and religion. 
' The deeds of the gods and of the descendants of the 

gods, the heroes, were celebrated in poetry and in drama 
(or rather in a primitive mixture of these two forms of art) 
at a very early period. At the same time, it is not probable 
(as we shall see) that art arose out of myth. 

Custom. Ethnic psychology has to deal (3) with the devel- 

opment of custom. Primitive custom — the customs 
of burial and marriage, the ceremonies connected 
with tillage and harvesting, etc. — is the root of cus- 
tom proper, of law and of morals. The customs of 
modern society are partly useful actions {e.g.^ the 
eating of meals at fixed hours), partly survivals of 
older modes of thought and conduct, which persist 
merely because there is no imperative reason for 
giving them up {e.g.^ the wearing of finger rings). 
Law is custom regulated by the state for the welfare 
of the majority of its members. Morality is cus- 
tom regulated by * public opinion,' by the approval 
and disapproval of the community. The spheres of 



§ i20. Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic 295 

law, religion and morals naturally overlap to a con- 
siderable extent in all forms of society. 

Lastly, (4) ethnic psychology has to deal with the Art. 
growth of art^ regarded as the play of the adult (§ 100). 
Some psychologists regard the aesthetic as a sub-form 
of the religious sentiment, and would therefore derive 
art from myth. The question cannot at present be 
decided ; but it seems probable that art is as distinct 
from myth as myth is from custom. 

The farther back we go in the history of humanity, the 
more difficult does it become to separate the products of 
the collective mind, — to say : this belongs to mythology, 
this to aesthetics, this to morals, this to custom. The 
primitive social mind, like the primitive individual mind 
(§ 48), is a one- tissue mind; differentiation means a rela- 
tively high stage of development. 

In the case of art the difficulty is unusually great, owing The origin of 

to the variety of purposes which the aesthetic sentiment has *^^ esthetic 
•' r r sentiment. 

been made to serve (courtship, religion, play). It has been 
suggested that that is beautiful, to primitive man, which he 
regards as expressing a pleasurable emotion. We must 
remember that anything (a tree, a weapon) might be thus 
regarded ; for everything was interpreted after the human 
pattern. The beautiful woman was, then, the woman who 
expressed pleasure in the man's bodily adornment, the 
woman in whose face he read the reflection of his own 
pride ; the beautiful landscape was the ^ smiling ' landscape ; 
the beautiful jar or bow was that in whose look or action the 
mechanic refound his own self-satisfied pleasure ; and so on. 
The theory is plausible : it is as yet very far from proved. 

§121. The Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic. 

— Ethics is the science of conduct. Its problem is 
stated by Herbert Spencer in the following words : 
" I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce, 



2g6 Province mid Relations of Psychology 



The problem from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds 
of ethics. Qf action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds 

to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are 

to be recognised as laws of conduct." 

Now it is clear that we cannot know * the laws of 
life and the conditions of existence ' in any other 
way than by a historical study of human society, by 
careful observation of the course of human evolution. 
The laws of life must be generalisations from the 
facts of life ; the conditions of existence must be 
ascertained from the actual ups and downs of exist- 
ence at different periods. Or, to put the same thing 
in another way : rules of conduct can be laid down 
only after conduct itself, in all its phases and stages, 
has been described and explained. 

The necessary preliminary to ethics, then, is the 
study of society : as Professor Wundt writes, *' the 
straight road to ethics lies through ethnic psychol- 
ogy." Ethnic psychology is the connecting link 
between the sciences of mind and of morals. On 
the one hand, its facts must be interpreted in the 
light of individual psychology (§ 117); on the other, 
the facts as thus interpreted are the material from 
which the moralist abstracts those general principles 
of living whose consequences are to be taken as rules 
or norms of conduct. Psychology is the foundation 
of ethics ; and not a few old-time ethical controver- 
sies are settled, once and for all, by appeal to it. 

Theprovince Logic is sometimes defined as the * science of 
ogic. thought.' A better definition would be * science of 

the niemiing or validity (soundness, justness, well- 
groundedness) of thought.' 



Ethics and 
ethnic psy- 
chology. 



§ 121. Relation of Psychology to EtJiics and Logic 297 

We have seen that every perception and idea 
means something. The elementary processes are 
put together at the bidding of nature (§ 38); and to 
say that nature lays constraint upon mind is to give 
the biological account of the fact which the psycholo- 
gist expresses by saying that mental processes *mean.* 
What is 'meaning' in psychology is simply * forma- 
tion under stress of natural environment ' in biology. 
Psychology has to do, of course, with all the aspects 
of mind : the concrete mental processes which form 
the objects of psychological enquiry are groups-of -ele- 
mentary-processes-that-mean. Logic, now, abstracts Psychology 
from the processes that compose the perception or ^"^ ^^^^' 
idea or judgment, and looks exclusively at the mean- 
ing-side of the complex. It does not care whether 
thought go on in terms of sight or hearing or touch ; 
it is concerned only to discover whether the thought 
is valid, justified under all sorts and kinds of environ- 
mental conditions. It thus proceeds * formally ' or 
symbolically, like a sort of algebra ; and, when it has 
gone so far as to formulate the laws of valid think- 
ing, deduces from them rules or norms of scientific 
thought and procedure, — as ethics deduces norms 
of conduct from the Maws of life.' 

The relation of psychology to logic, then, is two- 
fold. On the one hand, logic arises by way of 
abstraction from psychology ; a single aspect of 
the total psychological fact is made the basis of a 
special science. On the other hand, psychological 
investigation falls under the sway of logic ; unless 
the method of psychology is logical, its results will 
be invalid. 



298 Province and Relations of Psychology 



The problem 
of pedagogy. 



' Normative * 
disciplines. 



Child psy- 
chology and 
pedagogy. 



§ 122. The Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy. — 

The problem of pedagogy is to lay down rules or 
norms of education. Such rules may be derived from 
two sources : from the history of education and frorn 
child study. The history of education shows what 
rules have been successfully, and what unsuccessfully 
followed, at different periods and under various con- 
ditions ; child study should show, in general outline, 
the relation that the child mind bears to the adult 
mind, and should therefore assist the adult educator 
to deal with child pupils. 

Logic, ethics and pedagogy have, then, this much in com- 
mon, that all three are noi^mative disciplines ; their task is 
to lay down rules, to prescribe norms of action. Logic 
has made most progress ; ethics is still denied the name 
of science by some authors ; pedagogy is only gradually 
approximating to scientific accuracy. 

Pedagogy is sometimes defined, in round terms, 
as an 'applied child psychology.' The definition is 
incomplete, since it makes no reference to the his- 
torical study of education. Even when this omission 
is supplied, however, it is liable to misunderstanding. 
In the first place, the abstract ' child ' of psychology 
does not exist for education : the teacher has to 
face, not *the child,' but real children, Katie Jones 
and Tommy Smith. Psychology cannot deal with 
Jones-ness and Smith-ness, but only with child-ness. 
Science, indeed, can never be * applied' offhand: 
inventors tell us that no machine, however careful 
its theoretical planning may have been, will 'work' 
upon its first construction ; all sorts of unforeseen 
disturbances occur when the theory is translated into 



§ 122. Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy 299 

bits of metal. And if this is true of the inorganic 
world, it is doubly true of the world of mind. 

The author of a recent psychological text-book, arguing from 
the fact that attention is intermittent (§ 36), declares that "in 
learning anything by heart, we learn best ^by spurts/'' Yet 
experiment has shown that we learn best by reading the passage 
through steadily, again and again, from end to end, as if the 
attention were continuous! So complex are the conditions that 
determine a particular result, and so difficult is it to travel from 
theory to application, even within the limits of a single science. 

In the second place, the teacher has to deal with a 
number of children together, with a class. Now the 

* abstract ' child of psychology is an individual child, 
— just as the abstract adult mind that we have dis- 
cussed in this book is an individual mind. And it is 
impossible to pass, at one step, from the individual 
child of psychology to the class-room child — the 

* average' or social child — of pedagogy. 

We may, perhaps, say that child psychology stands to 
education as analytical mechanics stands to carpentering. 
The more mechanics the carpenter knows, the more intelli- 
gently will he work, and the readier will he be when emer- 
gencies arise and he is called upon to travel outside of his 
routine employments. But he has to translate his mechanics 
into terms of wood (the abstract becomes the real child) ; 
and his wood- work is limited by the needs of house building 
and furnishing (the child must be taught in class). More- 
over, he learns in the workshop tricks of his trade (history 
of education) which on ordinary occasions are of more 
direct service to him than his theoretical study. 

We conclude, then, that child study, when it has From theory 

, . - . . T - to practice. 

become a science, when, i.e., it stands as the counter- 
part of adult psychology, and its conclusions tally 
throughout with the results of experimental intro- 



300 Province and Relations of Psychology 

spection, will constitute one of the two sources from 
which the teacher may derive his norms of educa- 
tion ; and the more gifted the teacher, the greater 
will be the benefit obtained. The road that leads 
from theory to practice must always be long and 
arduous. But those who are seeking to further the 
cause of education by the way of child study may 
hold fast to this hope : that just because the road is 
difficult, and just because the end is reached only by 
the chosen few, the reformation when it does come 
will be a reformation worth the accomplishing, a 
reformation whose effects will more than compensate 
for the misdirection of energy that marks a period of 
unschooled enthusiasm. 

§ 123. Conclusion. — We took it for granted, at the 
outset, that psychology is a science. *' At the end of 
our enquiry," we said (§ 2), ''we shall be able to look 
back . . . and see that psychology, so far as it has gone, 
makes up an orderly and systematic body of know- 
ledge." The enquiry is now ended, and the reader 
must judge whether or not this introductory state- 
ment was well founded. So much, at any rate, he 
will grarrt : that, if the foregoing Chapters have dealt 
adequately with mental problems, there is no fact of 
mind, be it mental process or state of consciousness, 
that cannot be given its place by the side of other 
facts, with which it forms a coherent and self-consist- 
ent whole, — from which it derives and to which it 
imparts a significance that could not otherwise be 
attained. 

On the other hand, our enquiry has been brief, 



§ 123- Conclusion 301 

and has covered a wide field. While we have indi- 
cated that psychology is not ** a finished science ; 
that there are yet many problems for the psycholo- 
gist to solve," we have not been able to enter upon 
any detailed discussion of controverted issues. The 
reader must turn for fuller treatment to larger and 
more comprehensive works : only after an extended 
study of these will he be able to pass a valid judg- 
ment upon the position that psychology holds among 
the sciences. He will find, no doubt, plenty of 
* gossip and wrangle about opinions ' ; he will regret 
the time and labour wasted in 'contentions and bark- 
ing disputations.' But he will find, too, that the 
foundations of psychology are based upon the solid 
rock of fact ; that, while much remains to be done, 
much has been accomplished which will never require 
to be done over again. 

A word of caution may be added here. Students of 
psychology are oftentimes puzzled and discouraged by the 
differences that they find between what appear to be equally 
authoritative text-books. One psychologist speaks of the 
method of experimental introspection ; another discusses 
experiment, with but scant reference to introspection ; a 
third emphasises introspection, while he says but little of 
experiment. One book makes great use of the logical 
terms ^ discrimination,' ' integration,' ' comparison,' [ gen- 
eralisation,' etc. ; another, as far as possible, avoids them. 
One author is never tired of insisting on the * activity ' of 
mind ; another will hear nothing of activity. And so on. 

Now it must be remembered, in the first place, that 
doubtful matters are, in the nature of things, more dis- 
cussed than are matters of fact. If we are all agreed about 
something, we need spend no words upon it ; if we dis- 
agree, we must give reasons for our own belief and hear the 



302 Province and Relations of Psychology 

reasons offered by others for the adoption of a contrary 
view. Hence, in many cases, there is an appearance of 
divergent opinion, although the contestants are in complete 
harmony upon fundamental points. The student must learn 
to distinguish between surface-differences and differences of 
principle. 

Secondly, no science is finished, complete. Psychologists 
differ as regards method : so do physiologists. Psycholo- 
gists fall into two schools, according as they do or do not 
recognise a mental ' activity * : so do physiologists, accord- 
ing as they do or do not account for the phenomena of life 
in terms of physical and chemical laws. But physiology is 
a science, whether an individual physiologist be a vivisec- 
tionist or an anti-vivisectionist, a ' mechanist ' or a Witalist.' 
And psychology may be a science, despite the similar dif- 
ferences of psychological schools. To appreciate a psy- 
chological text-book, you must try to think yourself into 
the standpoint of the writer, to see how he conceived of 
the task before him, in what guise the separate problems 
presented themselves for solution. Reading in this spirit 
you are able (i) to estimate the internal coherence of the 
writer's system, to decide whether he is self-consistent or 
self-contradictory, and (2) to judge of its total value as a 
system, to compare the new method and the new point of 
view with your own, and decide which of the two is the 
more fruitful and the more scientific. There are very few 
books from which something may not be learned ; there are 
none which need confuse you, if you approach them in this 
way. 

Thirdly, however, there is a much more substantial agree- 
ment in questions of psychology than appears from the psy- 
chological text-books. Psychology has but very recently 
shaken itself free of philosophy, of metaphysics ; and many 
psychologists still think it necessary to treat of metaphysical 
and psychological problems together. Thus the difference 
of opinion with regard to mental activity is a difference of 
philosophical, not of psychological belief; it is a difference 



Questions and Exercises 303 

that can never be resolved by psychological methods. When, 
therefore, you find disagreement among psychologists, you 
must ask yourself whether the point at issue is psychological 
or philosophical. If it is philosophical, its discussion is 
irrelevant, and may be ignored in your appreciation of the 
psychological work of the writer. 

Questions and Exercises 

(i) Suppose that, wishing to trace the development of a child's 
mind, you kept records of its use of words and of its progress in 
drawing. What precautions would you take, to have the records 
clear of error ? 

(2) Are there, in customs and usages of the present day, any 
survivals of the anthropomorphic mythology of primitive man? 

(3) How can it be that one ' learns by heart ' better by read- 
ing the passage through, again and again, — i.e.^ by distributing 
widely the repetitions of each part of it, — than by committing to 
memory a few lines or words at a time ? Should the readings- 
through be done all at one sitting, or themselves distributed in 
time ? Why ? 

(4) Make a Table, in the form of a genealogical tree, showing 
the interrelation of the various psychologies, and the relation of 
psychology as a whole to ethics, logic and pedagogy. 

(5) Compare (i) the senile with the child mind, (2) the mind 
of the adult savage with that of the civilised child, and (3) the 
mind of the adult savage with that of the civilised man. Com- 
pare your present answer to (i) with your answer to Question 
(6), p. 23. Are you now more capable of introspection than you 
were when you began the book? 

(6) What is the original meaning of the phrase ' law of nature ' ? 
How has that meaning been modified? 

(7) Can psychology ever become a normative science? 

(8) What stages can you distinguish in a child's acquisition of 
language? Does it, e.g.^ use substantives before it uses verbs, or 
vice versa ? What is the psychological importance of a know- 
ledge of these stages ? 

(9) Explain the following actions in the simplest possible way : 
{a) " When a small object is thrown on the ground beyond 

the reach of the elephant, he blows through his trunk on the 
ground beyond the object, so that the current reflected on all 
sides may drive the object within his reach." 



304 Province and Relations of Psychology 

(J?) " Hearing a loud knock at the front door, I was told not 
to heed it, as it was only the kitten asking admittance. I watched 
for myself, and very soon saw the kitten jump on to the door, 
hang on by one leg, and put the other fore paw right through 
the knocker and rap twice. ""^ 

{c) " I knew a large dog that was very fond of grapes, and at 
night used to slip his collar in order to satisfy his propensity. It 
was not for some time that the thief was suspected, owing to his 
returning before daylight and appearing innocently chained up in 
his kennel." 

(d) " Some of the old bucks get the berries from the thorn- 
trees in this way. They will raise themselves on their hind legs, 
give a spring, entangle their horns in the lower branches of the 
tree, give them one or two shakes, and then quietly pick the 
berries up." 

(id) What evidence can you bring from language that makes 
for the theory of the origin of the aesthetic sentiment given in 
§ 120? 

(ii) What suggestions has psychology to offer towards a 
hygiene, physical and mental, of school life.'^ 

References 

James, Textbook^ pp. 327-329, 367-369, Epilogue. 

Sully, Human Mind, vol. I., pp. 10-13, 18-22; vol. II., ch. xix., 
App. G, H, K, L. See also Index, references to ^ child, 
' animals,' etc. 

Titchener, Outline, §§ 5, 6, 99-101. 

Wundt, Ethics, vol. I. 

Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XXIII., XXIV., XXVII., XXVIII., XXX. 

Wundt, Outlines, §§ 2, 19-21, 22-24. 

Consult further the works of J. M. Baldwin, E. Barnes {Studies 
in Education, Stanford Univ.), G. S. Hall {Pedagogical 
Seminary and Amer. Journ. of Psych.), G. Le Bon, T. W. 
Mills, K. C. Moore {Psych. Rev., Supplement), C. L. Mor- 
gan, B. Perez, W. Preyer, G. J. Romanes, M. W. Shinn 
(Univ. of California Studies'), D. Spalding {Macmillan^s 
Mag., 1873), J- Sully, F. Tracy, E. Thorndike {Psych. Rev., 
Supplement). 

Consult also various articles in Amer. Jour, of Psych., Mind, 
Philosophische Studien, Psych. Review, and Zeitschrift f. 
Physiologic u. Psychologic d. Sinnesorgane. 



APPENDIX I 

APPARATUS AND MATERIALS 

[Pieces of apparatus not expressly mentioned in the Questions and Exer- 
cises are printed here in square brackets.] 

PAGE 

Air-hydrogen bubble apparatus . 54 

E. G. Willyoung, 82-84 Fulton St., N. Y. ^12.00. 

[Apparatus for passive movement at the elbow . 55, iii 
Willyoung. $ 8.00.] 

[Association and memory apparatus 139 

Chicago Laboratory Supply Co., 31-45 W. Randolph 
Street, Chicago, 111. About ^12.00.] 

Beeswax . 55 

Blackboard 35, 52, 139 

Black cardboard tube (obtain from bookbinder) . 2i^ 

Black straws 52 

Bottles, for tones ........... 53 

[Brain models vii 

A useful set of five pieces can be obtained from E. 
Deyrolle, 46 Rue du Bac, Paris. Price of set, fr. 200; 
each piece separately, fr. 50. Imported models can 
be had from R. Kny & Co., 1 7 Park Place, N. Y., 
or from J. W. Queen & Co., loio Chestnut Street, 
Philadelphia, Pa. An album and a case of stereo- 
scopic slides of the nervous centres, by C. Debierre 
and E. Doumer, are sold by F. Alcan, 208 Boulevard 
St. Germaine, Paris, for fr. 20.] 

Camel's-hair brushes 55 

Candle and matches 36 

Cardboard, black and white 51, 121, 243, 263 

Chamois leather 56 

Coarse shot 56 

Colour top 51 

For class vi^ork, Bradley small colour-mixers (Milton 
Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass.) . ^0.50 per doz. For 
demonstration, Willyoung's colour wheel. ^8.00. 
X 305 



3o6 Appendix I 

PAGE 

Compasses, sesthesiometric ii8 

Willyoung; or Chicago Laboratory Supply Co. ^2.00. 

Compasses, drawing 52, 120 

Cork or pith points ^4 

Home-made; or Willyoung, ^0.40. 

Cotton wool 55 

Cross-section paper 54 

Fall chronometer (home-made) ...... 92 

Glass funnels, or funnel-shaped wooden boxes . . 56 

Gutta-percha tubing 53 

Eimer & Amend, 205 Third Avenue, N. Y. 

Hand-dynamometer 71 

Collin, 6 Rue de I'Ecole-de-Medecine, Paris. Fr. 25. 
Or E. Zimmermann, 21 Emilienstrasse, Leipzig. 
Mk. 27.50. 

India-rubber 55 

Letters, printed 92, 139 

Dennison Mfg. Co., 198 Broadway, N. Y. 
Metal tubes or rods 54 

Made by any tinsmith ; or Willyoung. ^ 2.00. Chi- 
cago Laboratory Supply Co. S1.50. 

Metre scale 54? 7ij n^, 120, 121, 243 

Bradley. ^ 0.0 1 ; postage, ^ o. o i . 

Paper, coloured . . . *-~ 36, 51, 71 

Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass. ; or Prang Edu- 
cational Co., 7 Park St., Boston, Mass. Apply for 
samples and priced catalogue. Hering's papers are 
procurable from R. Rothe, 16 Liebigstrasse, Leipzig. 

Paper, white tissue 52 

Paper, series of black, grey, white . . . . . 52, 71, 208 
Bradley; or better, have made by a photographer. 

Phials, for qualities of noise 54 

Piano 118, 208 

[^ Pseudoptics * . 51, 117 ff. 

A set of materials for experiments in visual sensation 
and perception, prepared by Professor Miinsterberg. 
Bradley. ^5.00.] 

Quincke's tubes (set of 13) 53 

Ziegler Electric Co., 141 Franklin Street, Boston, 
Mass. $2.cx). 



Appendix I 307 



PAGE 



Reaction-timer, with side-wire ^ 183, 185, 262 

L. N. Wilson, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. 
^5.00. 

Reaction- timer, colour-disc for . 264 

Wilson. About % 2.50. 

Scents, in phials 71, 207 

Soap, for soap-bubbles 54 

Stereoscope 119 

Willyoung. ^i.oo. 
Stereoscopic slides 119 

Willyoung; or Max Kohl, 51 Poststrasse, Chemnitz i. S. 
See catalogue, p. 132. — Cf. Brain Models, above. 

Stereoscopic shdes, celluloid for 119 

Stop-watch, or watch with seconds' hand 

36, 51^ 92, 121, 139, 208 
Obtain from v^^atchmaker. About % 6.00. 
Stroboscope 119 

Obtain from toy-dealer; or Kohl, cat., p. 133. Mk. 6 
(with picture strips). 
Taste solutions 55,118 

[Tilt-table 110 

Willyoung. $25.00.] 

Wire, fine 53 

W^ire, piece of piano 36 

The teacher will do well to procure in addition the cata- 
logues of the following firms : 

A. Appunn, 12 Niirnbergerstrasse, Hanau a. M. (Acoustic instr.) 
Cambridge Instrument Co., St. Tibb's Row, Cambridge, England. 

(General.) 
R. Jung, Heidelberg. (Optical instr.) 
R. Koenig, 27 Quai d'Anjou, Paris. (Acoustic instr.) 
W. Petzold, 13 Bayersche Strasse, Leipzig. (General.) 
C. Verdin, 7 Rue Linne, Paris. (General.) 

1 Instruments of the 1899 model have the side-wire provided with a clip 
to hold the screen, while bar b (p. 183) carries a projecting arm with clip 
to hold the stimulus cards. 



APPENDIX II 

THE CORTICAL CENTRES (FLECHSIG'S SCHEME) 

Figures 20, 21 are drawn, on a reduced scale, from a 
lithographed plate in Flechsig's Gehirn und Seek, 2d ed.. 




Fig. 20 




Fig. 21 



1896. Fig. 20 shows the outer surface of the right, Fig. 21 
the inner surface of the left, cerebral hemisphere. For the 
topography of the cortex, see F., p. 767. 

308 



Appendix II 309 

The Arabic numerals denote the sense-centres, i is the 
centre for ^ bodily feeling ' (touch and organic sensations) ; 
2, that for smell ; 3, that for sight ; and 4, that for hearing. 

The smell centre is structurally the simplest {cf. p. 47, 
sup^ ; then follow in order the centres for ' bodily feeling/ 
hearing and sight (c/. pp. ^S, 42). The centre for ^ bodily 
feeling' is the largest of all, and has far more numerous 
motor connections than all the rest together; its high 
development is characteristic of the human brain. For one 
phase of its psychological importance, see p. 225. — It is 
interesting to note that in some of the mammalian orders 
the smell centre is the largest, while in certain catarrhine 
monkeys the sight centre is enormously developed. 

The /aste centre has not been finally localised. It prob- 
ably occupies the anterior half of the gyrus fornicatus. 

The Roman numerals denote the association-centres . I. is 
the great posterior association-centre, bounded by the sense- 
centres of touch, sight and hearing ; IL, the middle associa- 
tion-centre, occupying the Insula Reilii, and bounded by 
touch, hearing and smell ; and III., the anterior association- 
centre, bounded by touch and smell (and taste?). The 
relatively high development of this third association-centre, 
and the surpassing of the sense-centres by the association- 
centres in extent, are characteristic of the human brain. 
The structure of all the association-centres is uniform. 

What of the interconnections of these centres? Cross 
connections (from hemisphere to hemisphere) obtain be- 
tween the corresponding sense-centres of each hemisphere, 
and between the two posterior and anterior association- 
centres. The two insulae, however, are relatively separate ; 
their importance is only local. Direct connections within 
the same hemisphere obtain between the touch and smell 
centres ; but the sight-centre is very sparsely connected, 
whether with the touch or with the hearing centre. The 
anterior and posterior association-centres, also, show very 
little trace of direct interconnection. On the other hand, 
the sense-centres are indirectly connected by way of the 



3IO Appendix II 

association-centres ; and the two great association-centres 
are held together by the centre for ^ bodily feeling/ — 
which again, therefore, evinces its supreme importance for 
the centralisation of consciousness. Lastly, it should be 
mentioned that every sense-centre is also a motor-centre; 
the motor connections of the association-centres are only 
indirect. 

Other articles by Professor Flechsig will be found in the 
Bericht uber den Jten internat. Congress fur Psychologie, 
1897, pp. 49 ff. ; and in the Neurolog, Centralblatt, No- 
vember, 1898. In the latter paper, Flechsig recognises 
three (not two) levels of cortical centres. Besides the 
sense-centres and the association-centres there are the in- 
termediate centres, composed of the lightly-dotted portions 
of the sense-areas of Figs. 20, 21, and of the adjoining mar- 
ginal areas of the association-centres. These intermediate 
centres stand midway in order of development, and presum- 
ably in function, between the sense-centres and the associa- 
tion-centres proper. 



INDEX 



OF 



NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Abstraction, process of, 222 ; concept 
of, 223 ; see Idea, abstract. 

Action, as index of mind, 16; and 
movement, 161 ; definition of, 162; 
attention the prime condition of, 
163, 169 ; and motive, 165 ; impul- 
sive, 165, 167, 178, 180, 181, 211; 
psychomotor, 170 ; instinctive, 173 ; 
simple reaction, 179 ; development 
of, beyond impulse, 245 ; selective, 
246, 261 ; volitional, 246, 249, 261 ; 
secondary psychomotor, 246, 256, 
262 ; choice and resolve, 251 ; clas- 
sification of, 258 ; compound reac- 
tion, 258. 

iEsthetic sentiment, of beauty, 232, 
238 ; of sublimity, tragedy and 
comedy, 238 ; origin of, 295. 

Esthetics, subject of, 214; practical 
utility of, 240 ; primitive and civil- 
ised art, 241 ; as play, 241, 242, 
• 295. 

Affection, qualities of, 57, 68 ; physio- 
logical basis of, 58, 68, 91; defini- 
tion of, 58; bodily signs of, 62; 
and sensation, 64, 83; idea of, 66; 
and attention, 68, 81, 83, 93; in 
feeling, 59; in emotion, 150; in 
sentiment, 233. 

Animal psychology, 17, 176 ; the old 
and the new, 290; materials of, 
291 ; method of, 292. 

Aphasia, 283. 

Apperception, as selective percep- 
tion, 85, 88 ; explanation of, 86, 87 ; 
illusions of, 52, 117, 128. 

Aristotle, 32. 

Art, in ethnic psychology, 275 ; see 
Esthetics. 

Assimilation, loi, 141; in emotion, 
143 ; in recognition, 190. 



Association of ideas, law of, 130; 
forms of, 131, 132, 134; formula 
of, 131, 133; sensation and idea, 
131; and perception, 131; simul- 
taneous, 132; successive, 134; 
physiological conditions of, 136; 
law of, in dreaming, 269. 

Association centres of cortex, 90, 98, 

309- 

Attention, a state of consciousness, 
20, 74; necessary in introspection, 
34,74; and affection, 68, 81, 83,91 ; 
problem of, 73 ; two sides of, 74, 
84; to and from ideas, 75, loi ; 
passive, 76, 79, 187, 203, 205, 250, 
251 ; active, 76, 80, 187, 204, 231, 
245, 248, 251; secondary passive, 
-]-], 80, 81, 194, 205, 231, 248, 252; 
and bodily tendency, 79; bodily 
attitude in, 84 ; duration of, 88, 91 ; 
range of, 89 ; physiological condi- 
tions of, 90 ; as condition of action, 
163, 269; neglected by the older 
psychology, 164; in reaction ex- 
periments, 179; direction of, in 
reaction, 181; and habit, 196; ab- 
sent in dreaming, 269, 271 ; in 
hypnosis, 273. 

Autosuggestion, 274. 

Bateman, F., 283. 

Belief, analysis of, 235. 

Berkeley, G., 220. 

Bethe, A., 176. 

Binet, A., 176. 

Bodily posture, perception of, 109; 
in emotion, 143; inattention, 84. 

Bodily tendency, and mental consti- 
tution, 78 ; natural and acquired, 
79 ; and the forms of attention, 79 ; 
and apperception, 88. 



311 



312 



Index 



Body, and mind, 12, 18, 22; and the 
idea of self, 225 ; see Physiology. 

Braid, y., 272. 

Brain, the organ of mind, 13, 14, 17; 
of man and animals, 14; state of, 
in mental derangement, 15, 279 ; 
see Physiology. 

Brightness, sensations of, 38 ; their 
relation to colour sensations, 39; 
system of sensations, 40; the- 
ory of, 42; extent of sensation, 
100. 

Burnett, Mrs. F, 77., 83. 

Catelepsy, 272. 

Cataplexy, 274. 

Chess, 249. 

Child psychology, two branches of, 
288 ; investigation of fatigue in 
school hours, 289 ; two desiderata 
in, 289 ; and adult psychology, 290 ; 
and pedagogy, 298. 

Children's lies, 202; vocabulary, 126. 

Choice, definition of, 252; analysis 
of, 252 ; in everyday life, 253. 

Clang, perception of, 104. 

Cognition, 199. 

Colour, series of, 39; relation of, to 
brightness, 39; system of sensa- 
tions, 40 ; theory of, 42 ; extent of 
sensation, 100. 

Comfort, necessary in introspection, 

34- 

Comparison, analysis of, 221 ; con- 
cept of, 222. 

Concept, definition of, 219 ; develop- 
ment of, 223 ; of attribute, 224 ; of 
self, 224, 226. 

Consciousness, definition of, 19; 
states of, 20, 73; complete and 
incomplete, 163, 165 ; double, 276. 

Contrast, visual, 52. 

Cooper, J. F,, 85, 146. 

Cramming, 196. 

Custom, in ethnic psychology, 294; 
law, morality, and religion, 294. 

Darwin, C, 145, 288. 
Deliberation, 251. 
Dementia, 282. 
Dickens, C, 63, 65, 203. 
Direct apprehension, recognition and 
memory, 199 ; analysis of, 200. 



Distance, perception of, 109 ; assimi- 
lation of, 133. 

Donaldson, H., 98. 

Dreaming, a state of consciousness, 
20; abnormal, 266; peripherally 
aroused, 267, 268 ; generally visual, 
267, 268 ; fantastic arrangement of 
ideas in, 269, 276 ; incidents taken 
for granted in, 270 ; bodily condi- 
tions of, 271 ; and sleepwalking, 
271 ; and hypnosis, 273 ; and in- 
sanity, 278. 

Duration, of sensation, 99 ; of atten- 
tion, 88 ; of emotion and mood, 
142; of reaction, 180, 261. 



Ear, organ of hearing, 43 ; organ of 
equilibrium, 44; a piano, 44; 
primitive, 43, 45 ; time value of 
hearing sensations, 113, 213. 

Education, problem of, 79 ; intellec- 
tual progress, 81 ; of imagination, 
202. 

Effort, in active attention, 85; in im- 
pulse, 170. 

Elements, mental, 21, 22; not to be 
separately experienced, 21 ; laws 
of connection of, 22, 130, 188 ; sen- 
sations, 37 ; affections, 57. 

Emotion, expression of, 62, 144, 146, 
149, 211; instances of, 70, 143; 
formation of, 141, 143 ; and mood, 
141, 142; and feeUng, 141, 144, 
145; classification of, 150, 152; 
qualitative, 150; temporal, 150, 
153; cardinal, 151, 154; develop- 
ment of, 154 ; mixed, 155 ; and im- 
pulse, 169, 211; and instinct, 175; 
and sentiment, 230. 

Ethics, and psychology, 233, 296; 
normative, 298. 

Ethnic psychology, definition of, 292 ; 
problem of, 293 ; and ethics, 296. 

Excitation, nervous, 13, 30. 

Experiment, definition of, 26; in 
psychology, 30; instance of psy- 
chological, 30, 32; requires sub- 
ject and experimenter, 31 ; see 
Questions and exercises. 

Extent, of sensation, 100; range of 
attention, 89 ; affection as ' wide * 
as consciousness, 65, 83, 155. 



Index 



313 



Eye, sensations from, 38; a photo- 
graphic camera, 39 ; physiological 
theory of, 42 ; as space organ, 106, 
107, 109, III, 117. 

Familiarity, analysis of, 190, 192. 
Fatigue, hostile to introspection, 34 ; 

see Child psychology. 
Feeling, definition of, 59 ; law of, 60 ; 

place of sensation in, 59, 66, 70; 

various meanings of word, 61, 142; 

of drowsiness analysed, 61 ; and 

emotion, 141, 144, 145 ; and mood, 

141, 142; higher and lower, 153, 

233; mixed, 155. 
Flechsig, P., 90, 91, 98, 225, 284, 

308 ff. 
Forgetfuiness, 195. 
Fusion, of sensations, 103, 146. 

Galen, 158. 

General paresis, 282. 

Genius, 218. 

Gesture, and primitive language, 148, 

213; two kinds of, 211. 
Giddiness, sensation of, 44, no. 

Habit, law of, 136, 195, 198 ; levels of, 
196; and attention, 196. 

Hawthorne, N., 206. 

Bering, E., 41, 52. 

Hesitation, 251. 

Hippocrates, 158, 

Hobbes, T., 135. 

Hume, D., 156, 157, 235. 

Huxley, T. H., 24. 

Hypnotism, as stat'^ of conscious- 
ness, 20; definition of, 271 ; three 
stages of hypnosis, 211 ; physiology 
and psychology of,272 ; and dream- 
ing, 273 ; always self-hypnotism, 
273 ; all sane persons hypnotisable, 
274 ; of animals, 274 ; rapport, 275 ; 
double consciousness, 276 ; post- 
hypnotic suggestion, 277 ; therapeu- 
tic value of, 277 ; and insanity, 278. 

Idea, observation of an, 7 ; in state of 
attention,75 ; formation of, 94 ; how 
different from perception, 95 ; in- 
fluence of conscious background 
on, 97 ; cerebral localisation of, 98 ; 
as reproduction and translation of 



perception, 122 ; train of ideas, 135, 
141 ; of own movement in impulse, 
165,170; of result of movement, in 
impulse, 167, 171 ; and memory, 
189, 206 ; and imagination, 201, 206 ; 
aggregate, 218 ; abstract, 219 ; of 
self, 225 ; in dreams, 267, 270 ; see 
Association of Ideas, Memory type. 
Ideomotor action, 171 ; secondary, 

257. 
Idiocy, 281. 

Illusion, of form, 115; of size, 116; 
of direction, 117 ; apperceptive, 52, 
117, 128. 

Imagery, mental, 201 ; as visualisa- 
tion, 201 ; dangers of, 201 ; two 
forms of, 202. 

Imagination, active, 187, 204, 215; 
passive, 187, 203 ; and memory, 
205; limits of, 206; and images, 
207; affective processes in, 202, 
207 ; and thought, 214. 

Imbecility, 281. 

Impartiality, necessary in introspec- 
tion, 34. 

Impulse, typical motive, 165, 178; 
and idea of own movement, 165, 
170; and idea of result, 167, 171:: 
definition of, 169; and emotion, 
169, 211 ; and psychomotor action, 
170 ; and reflex movement, 171 ; 
and instinct, 174; earlier than re- 
flex and instinct, 176; classifi- 
cation of human, 177 ; rivalry o^ 
complex, in selective action, 247 ; 
rivalry of, with idea, 249 ; and sec- 
ondary psychomotor action, 256; 
and automatic movement, 257; 
see Reaction. 

Incentive, 165, 167, 169, 174. 

Inducement, 165, 167, 168, 174. 

Insanity, dreaming and hypnosis, 
278 ; physiological conditions of, 
279; forms of, 281; study of, 282. 

Instinct, as motive, 174; impulse and 
emotion, 175 ; classification of hu- 
man, 177 ; in animal psychology, 
292. 

Intellectual sentiment, 232, 234, 239; 
oscillatory, 234, 251; analysis of 
belief, 235. 

Intensity of sensation, 49. 

Interest, 82. 



314 



Index 



Introspection, vs. inspection, 27; 
vciM^XhQ post mortem, '2'^ \ 'morbid,' 
29; experimental, the method of 
psychology, 32, 287 ; special rules 
for, 33 ; general rules for, 34. 

Jackson, H., 164. [235. 

James, IV., 25, 114, 171, 173, 175, 197, 
Jevons, W. S., 197. 
Judgment, formation of, 215 ; of rare 

occurrence, 217, 248 ; peculiar to 

man, 218. 

Laboratory, the Leipzig, 32. 

Language, as index of mind, 16; 
metaphors in primitive, 147; as 
expressive of emotion, 211 ; origin 
of, 212 ; possible only in society, 
16, 212; development of, 213, 293; 
see Gesture, Word. 

Lav\^, in society, as index of mind, 
16, 294; of connection of mental 
elements, 22, 103, 130. 

Lehmann, A., 169, 175. 

Locke, J., 219. 

Logic, subject of, 214; and psychol- 
ogy of thought, 221 ; and psychol- 
ogy, 297 ; a normative science, 298. 

Lytton, E. B., 203. 

Mach^ E., 226. 

Mania, 281. ,. 

Meaning, attaches to concrete pro- 
cesses, 95, 104, 114, 134, 212; psy- 
chological basis of, 95, 191 ; ab- 
stracted by logic, 297. 

Melancholia, 282. 

Memory, affective, 129 ; active, 187, 
193; passive, 187, 189, 190; and 
idea, 189, 206 ; definition of, 189, 
199 ; degrees of, 192 ; physiology 
of, 195 ; as retention, reproduction, 
and recognition, 197 ; and imagina- 
tion, 205. 

Memory type, definition of, 123 ; 
visual, 124, 127; auditory, 124, 127; 
tactual or motor, 124, 127; mixed, 
125, 127; verbal, 126; taste and 
smell, 128 ; organic, 128. 

Mental constitution, definition of, 78 ; 
indications of, 78 ; and the forms 
of attention, 79; natural and ac- 
quired, 79 ; see Bodily tendency. 



Mental processes, mind is sum of, 7 ; 
instances of, 7, 12; definition of, 
10, 15 ; and the facts of science, 
11; classification of, 19, 37; con- 
crete, 20, 70, 94 ; elementary, 21, 22, 
Z7^ 69. 

Mercier, C, 225, 280, 281. 

Mind, the subject of psychology, i, 4 ; 
popular notion of, 4; psychological 
definition of, 5, 6 ; composition of, 
7 ; and brain, 13 ; possessed by 
man and animals, 15 ; rudiment- 
ary, 16 ; not a function of brain, 
17; conditioned by body, 18, 22, 
30; divisions of, 19; child, adult, 
and senile, 19 ; and consciousness, 
19 ; logical reconstruction of, 21 ; 
and nature, 95, 163 ; animal, 17, -j^, 
79, 81, 176, 218, 292; child, ^-j, 79, 
81, 290; pathology of, 278; col- 
lective, 292. 

Mood, feeling and emotion, 141, 142; 
and train of ideas, 141 ; qualitative, 
151; of indifference, 152; temporal, 
154; of recognition, 190, 191; of 
direct apprehension, 200 ; of imag- 
ination, 207. 

Motive, composition of, 165, 166; as 
impulse,i65 ; instances of, 167, 168. 

Movement, perception of, no; as 
psychological phenomenon, 161, 
162, 172; definition of, 163; ex- 
pressive, 144, 146, 170; reflex, 171, 

176, 180 ; involuntary, 172, 258 ; in- 
stinctive, 173,177; physiology and 
psychology of, 175, 177 ; automatic 
or secondary reflex, 246, 256, 262. 

Muscle and tendon, independent 

functions of, 48. 
Muscular strength, index of affection, 

63. 

Music, 43, 44, 105. 

Myth, in ethnic psychology, 293, 295 ; 
anthropomorphism of, 294. 

Nervous system, i3,9of., 95, 98, 164, 

177, 225, 284, 308 ff. 
Noise, sensation of, 43. 

Objective and subjective, applied to 
sensation and affection, 66; in 
emotion and sentiment, 151, 154, 
234, 236, 237. 



Index 



315 



Observation, in all science, 24; in 
psychology, 27. 

Organic sensations, 47 ; and Wundt's 
affective qualities, 70; in emotion, 
143 ; and memory type, 128. 

Pain, sensation of, 45, 46, 47, 67. 

Parallelism, principle of, 18. 

Paranoia, 282. 

Pater, W., 205. 

Pedagogy, normative, 298 ; and his- 
tory of education, 298; and child 
study, 298. 

Perception, observation of a, 8; and 
affection, 60 ; range of attention to, 
89 ; formation of, 94 ; how different 
from idea, 95 ; cortical localisation 
of, 98 ; three classes of, 98 ; quali- 
tative, 99, 100, 103 ; spatial, 99, 100, 
106, 107, 109, no, 115; temporal, 
99, 100, 112; pure and symbolic, 
loi ; differentiates the world, 114; 
illusory, 115; and association,i3i ; 
of self, 224. 

Pestalozzi, y. H., 288. 

Physiology, brain and nervous sys- 
tem, 13, 14, 17, 30, 33, 42, 90, 91, 95, 
98, 164, 177, 225, 279, 284, 308 ff.; 
importance of, in psychology, 18 ; 
of sensation, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 
48; of affection, 58, 63, 68, 91, 144, 
146, 149 ; of bodily tendency, 79 ; 
of attention, 84, 90 ; of association, 
136; of habit, 137, 195, 198; of 
movement, 172, 175, 177; of mem- 
ory, 165 ; of retention, 198 ; of 
sleep, 266 ; of dreaming, 271 ; of 
hypnosis, 272. 

Pleasantness and unpleasantness, the 
two affective qualities, 58, 70, 150; 
biological significance of, 58. 

Poe, E. A,, 136, 206. 

Position, perception of, 107. 

Pressure, from skin, 45; from mu- 
cous membrane, 46 ; from muscles, 
47 ; from joint, 47 ; in drowsiness, 
61 ; as extended, 100 ; space value 
of, 108, 109, no. III ; time value 
of, 113. 

Process, compared with thing, 6; 
physiological and psychological, 
10, 13 ; see Mental process. Mind. 

Psychology, meaning of word, i ; is 



a science, 3, 287, 300 ; subject of, 4, 
7 ; and physiology, 17 ; problem of, 
22 ; method of, 24 ff., 32, 35, 287 ; 
and logic, 221, 297 ; abnormal, 266, 
287 ; scope of, 286 ; standard, 286, 
288; child, 287, 288; animal, 287, 
290; ethnic, 287, 292; ethics and 
logic, 295; and pedagogy, 298; 
difference of opinion in, 301. 

Psychomotor action, formation of, 
170 ; secondary, 246, 256. 

Pulse, index of affection, 63. 

Questions and exercises, 22, 35, 51, 
71, 91, 118, 138, 159, 182, 207, 228, 
243, 262, 284, 303. 

Rapport, hypnotic, 275. 

Reaction, simple, 179 ; sensorial, 179, 
181, 182; muscular, 180, 181 ; cen- 
tral, 180, 181, 182 ; association, 182 ; 
discrimination, 260 ; cognition, 260 ; 
choice, 261 ; automatic, 262. 

Reasoning, 216. 

Recognition, passive, 188, 190 ; pleas- 
urable, 191 ; illustrates ' meaning,' 
191 ; degrees of, 192 ; active, 193 ; 
in the older psychology, 198. 

Recollection, 195. 

References, 23, 36, 51, 72, 93, 121, 140, 

160, 186, 2TO, 229, 244, 265, 285,304. 

Reflex movement, development of, 

171, 175 ; secondary, 257. 
Relation, instances of, 222; concept 

of, 223. 
Religious sentiment, 232, 237, 239; 

relation of, to social, 287. 
Repetition, effect of, on sensation and 

affection, 67. 
Reproduction, 122, 198. 
Resistance, perception of, 104. 
Resolve, definition of, 252 ; instance 

of, 254. 
Respiration, sensations of, 47 ; index 

of affection. 63. 
Retention, 197. 
Rhythm, perception of, 112. 

Science, definition of, 2 ; instances of, 
2 ; psychology is a, 3, 287, 300. 

Self, perception of, 224 ; idea of, 225 ; 
abstract idea of, 226; concept of, 
226. 

Self-consciousness, definition of, 227 ; 



3i6 



hidex 



in old and new psychology, 227 ; 
as nervousness, 228. 

Selective action, definition of, 245 ; 
progressive development of, 246; 
of daily life, 248. 

Sensation, definition of, 37 ; not ob- 
tainable singly, 21, 37 ; central and 
peripheral, 33,37,95; classification 
of, 37 ; from eye, 38 ; from ear, 42 ; 
from skin, 45; from mouth and 
nose, 46 ; from internal organs, 47 ; 
quality of, 37 ff., 49 ; intensity of, 
49 ; in feeling, 59, 66, 'j'j ; and af- 
fection, 64, 83 ; extent and duration 
of, 99; motor, III, 124; and asso- 
ciation, 131. 

Sense centres of cortex, 90, 98, 309. 

Sensorimotor action, 171, 178, 181, 
262. 

Sentiment and emotion, 230 ; forma- 
tion of, 230, 252 ; forms of, 231 ; 
intellectual, 232, 234; social, 232, 
236 ; religious, 232, 236 ; aesthetic, 

232, 238 ; practical importance of, 

233, 240. 

Shakespeare, 65,68,143, 147, 155, 157, 
239, 250, 254. 

Skin, function of, 45; perception of 
locality on, 106. 

Sleep, physiology and psychology of, 
266. 

Smell, sensations of, 46; organs^of, 
46. 

Social sentiments, 232, 236, 239; re- 
lation of, to religious, 237. 

Solidity, perception of, 109. 

Somnambulism, 272. 

Sound, localisation of, 132. 

Specific character of concrete pro- 
cesses, 69. 

Spencer, H., 295. 

Stimulus, definition of, 13; function 
of, in experiment, 30. 

Suggestion, 36, 212, 228, 275, 277. 

Sully, J., 157, 169, 239. 



Talent, 218. 

Taste, sensations of, 46 ; relation of, 
to smell, 46; organs of, 46; per- 
ception of, 104. 

Temperament, 157; see Mental con- 
stitution. 

Temperature, sensations of, 45, 46; 
in tickling, 48 ; in drowsiness, 61. 

Tennyson, A., 253. 

Thackeray, W. M., 159, 203. 

Thought, various uses of word, 213; 
definition of, 214 ; and active imagi- 
nation, 214 ; judgment and reason- 
ing, 215 ; logic and psychology of, 
221. 

Tickling, 48. 

Time, present, and consciousness, 19 ; 
duration of attention, 88 ; of sensa- 
tion, 99; temporal perception, 99, 
100, 112; temporal emotion, 150, 
153 ; duration of simple reaction, 
180; of cognition reaction, 261. 

Tone, sensation of, 43 ; system of, 43. 

Tradition, influence of, on sentiment, 
231 ; on selective action, 249. 

Verworn, M., 176. 

Volitional action, definition of, 246, 

249 ; degeneration of, 249. 
Volume of body, index of affection, 

63. 

Weber, E. //., 51. 

Weber's law, 49, 50; usefulness of, 
50 ; explanation of, 51. 

Will, definition of, 254 ; psychologi- 
cal arguments for freedom of, 254; 
against, 255. 

Word, importance of idea, 123, 126 ; 
verbal association, 133; theearUest 
words, 213; vs. gesture, 213; and 
image, 214; development of, 214; 
thought and, 215. 

Wundt, W., 32, 68, 69, 70, 169, 213, 
296. 



AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

BY 

EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER, A.M., Ph.D., 
Sage Professor of Psychology at the Cornell University. 

Second Edition with Corrections. 
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result of this definite position is to make the work clear, exact in expression, systematic, 
methodical. The work is thoroughly good and useful." — Joseph Jastrow, University 
of Wisconsin, in the Dial, 



A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

BY 

EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER, 

M.A. (Oxon.), Ph.D. (Leipzig), 

Sage Professor of Psychology in the Cornell University. 
i2mo. Cloth. $1.00, net. 



This volume is intended as a first book in psychology. It will therefore seek 
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such as can be performed by their aid or by help of others that can readily be 
constructed by the teacher himself. Diagrams, psychological not physiological 
in character, will be freely used in illustration of the text. 



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THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD 

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Lecturer on Anthropology in Clark University y Worcester y Mass.; etc., etc 

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